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STUDIES  IN  CULTURE  HISTORY 


ANTHROPOLOGICAL  SERIES 

FIELD  MUSEUM  OF  NATURAL  HISTORY 

VOLUME  XVIII 

1928-1931 

CHICAGO,  U.  S.  A. 


fl 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

1.  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 1 

By  Berthold  Laufer. 

2.  Geophagy 97 

By  Berthold  Laufer. 

3.  The  Domestication  of  the  Cormorant  in  China  and  Japan  .    .   199 

By  Berthold  Laufer. 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Founded  by  Marshall  Field,  1893 

Publication  253 
Anthropological  Series  Volume  XVIII,  No.  1 


THE  PREHISTORY  OF  AVIATION 


BY 

Berthold  Laufer 

Curator  of  Anthropology 


12  Plates  in  Photogravure 


TEE  LI8SARY  8F  TBE 
0-C  2  01928 

UNIVERSITY  or  ILLINOIS 


Chicago 

1928 


Copyright  1928 

BY 

Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 
BY  FIELD  MUSEUM  PRESS 


S72.D5" 

PA 


CONTENTS 

List  of  Plates              5 

Introduction               7 

The  Romance  of  Flying  in  Ancient  China            14 

Kites  as  Precursors  of  Aeroplanes        31 

The  Dawn  of  Airships  in  Ancient  India 44 

From  Babylon  and  Persia  to  the  Greeks  and  the  Arabs  58 

The  Air  Mail  of  Ancient  Times 71 

Notes         88 

Bibliographical  References         94 

Index         95 


LIST  OF  PLATES 

I.    Winged  Deity  Attended  by  Bird-men.    Stone  bas-relief  of  Han  period, 
A.D.  147,  Shan-tung,  China. 

II.  Aerial  Contest  of  Dragon-chariot  and  Dragon-riders.  Stone  bas-relief  of 
Han  period,  A.D.  147,  Shan-tung,  China. 

III.  Aerial  Contest  of  Dragon-chariot  and  Dragon-riders.   Continuation  of  the 

panel  shown  in  Plate  II. 

IV.  Ki-kung's  Flying  Chariot.  Chinese  Woodcut  from  T'u  shu  tsi  ch'eng. 

V.    Francesco  Lana's  Flying  Boat.  From  Lana's  Prodromo,  1670. 

VI.  Flying  Taoist  Saint.  Chinese  landscape  in  ink  from  General  Munthe  Col- 
lection now  in  Los  Angeles  Museum. 

VII.  The  Goddess  Si  Wang  Mu  Flying  Astride  a  Crane.  Scene  from  an  embroi- 
dered Chinese  screen  of  the  K'ang-hi  period  (1662-1722)  in  Blackstone 
Chinese  Collection  of  Field  Museum. 

VIII.  Boys  Flying  a  Kite.  Scene  from  a  Chinese  painted  roll  by  Su  Han-ch'en  of 
the  twelfth  century  in  collections  of  Field  Museum. 

IX.  Earliest  English  Illustration  of  a  Kite.  From  John  Bate's  The  Mysteries 
of  Nature  and  Art,  1634. 

X.  Two  Apsarases  or  Heavenly  Nymphs  Flying  downward  and  Surrounding 
the  Buddha  Amitabha.  Marble  sculpture  with  votive  inscription 
yielding  date  A.D.  677.  Blackstone  Chinese  Collection  of  Field 
Museum. 

XI.  Kai  Kawus'  Flight  to  Heaven.  From  a  Persian  illustrated  manuscript  of 
the  Shahnameh,  dated  1587-88.  Courtesy  of  Metropolitan  Museum  of 
Art,  New  York. 

XII.  The  Aerial  Voyage  of  Domingo  Gonsales.  From  F.  Godwin's  Man  in  the 
Moone,  1638. 


THE  PREHISTORY  OF  AVIATION 

INTRODUCTION 

A  French  miniature  of  the  fourteenth  century  depicts  the  Spirit 

or  Angel  of  Youth,  who  is  never  fatigued  and  whose  course  nothing 

can  arrest.  He  is  arrayed  with  wings  on  his  feet,  soaring  over  the  sea. 

The  wings  are  tinted  green,  the  color  of  hope.   Youth  has  fair  hair 

and  a  blue  robe.   He  carries  on  his  shoulders  a  pilgrim  who  is  in  the 

vigor  of  age,  and  while  crossing  the  water,  addresses  to  him  these 

lines: — 

I  am  called  Youth,  the  nimble, 

The  tumbler  and  the  runner, 

The  grasshopper,  the  dasher, 

Who  cares  not  a  glove  for  danger. 

I  see,  I  come,  I  bound,  I  fly, 

I  sport  and  caracole. 

My  feet  they  bear  me  whither  I  will, 

They've  wings;  your  eyes  may  see  them. 

Give  here  thine  hand,  with  thee  I'll  fly 

And  carry  thee  over  the  sea. 

On  May  20-21, 1927,  Colonel  Charles  A.  Lindbergh  accomplished 
his  solitary  transoceanic  flight  from  New  York  to  Paris  and  stirred 
the  entire  world.  We  experienced  the  same  thrill  as  in  our  boyhood 
days  when  we  were  first  reading  about  the  campaigns  of  Alexander 
the  Great  or  Columbus'  voyages  of  discovery. 

Yet,  the  desire  to  fly  is  as  old  as  mankind.  "Oh  that  I  had  wings 
like  a  dove!  for  then  would  I  fly  away,  and  be  at  rest,"  sings  the 


8  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

royal  psalmist  (Psalms  55,  6).  In  all  ages  man's  imagination  was 
fired  by  the  sight  of  soaring  birds  and  was  seized  by  the  ambition  to 
migrate  and  to  sail  upon  the  wind  like  one  of  them.  Many  daring 
men  tried  nobly  and  less  nobly  to  emulate  the  ways  of  the  eagle  in 
the  air.  It  is  a  long  record  of  ventures,  experiments,  and  failures, 
but  remains  the  most  fascinating  romance  in  the  history  of  mankind. 

In  his  excellent  "History  of  Aeronautics  in  Great  Britain,"  J.  E. 
Hodgson  divides  the  history  of  the  subject  into  four  eras  covering 
very  unequal  periods  of  time.  His  first  he  titles  the  legendary  and 
prehistoric  era  with  its  tale  of  mythological  and  fabulous  stories  of 
flight,  verging  gradually  into  the  historic,  and  extending  to  about 
the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century.  As  examples  of  this  prehistoric 
period  he  cites  Daedalus  and  Icarus  from  Greek  mythology  and 
Bladud,  the  flying  king  of  Britain  in  800  B.C.  However,  China, 
India,  and  the  rest  of  Asia  remain  out  of  consideration  in  this  scheme. 
Moreover,  the  ideas  registered  by  Hodgson  under  his  three  historical 
periods  of  Europe,  like  aspiration,  speculation,  endeavor,  romance, 
limited  achievement,  are  no  less  conspicuous  in  the  Orient.  His 
second  or  first  historical  period  in  Europe,  which  dates  from  the  six- 
teenth to  beyond  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  is  charac- 
terized thus:  "The  practicability  of  flight  was  a  matter  of  speculation 
and  discussion,  became  the  subject  of  imaginative  romance,  and  was 
made  the  object  of  theoretical  projects  and  not  a  few  practical 
attempts." 

It  will  be  demonstrated  on  the  following  pages  that  all  these 
features  were  in  evidence  among  Oriental  nations  in  early  times, 
many  centuries  before  their  dawn  in  Europe,  and  that  the  fundamen- 
tal ideas  underlying  the  principles  of  our  present  aviation  take  their 
root  in  the  Orient.  My  conception  of  the  so-called  mythological  and 
legendary  period  in  the  history  of  aviation  differs  widely  from  that 
of  my  predecessors.  It  is  a  comfortable  method  and  no  more  than  a 
conventional  form  of  thinking  to  stamp  early  traditions  as  mytho- 
logical or  legendary.  This  is  a  scholastic  phrase  from  which  little  is 
gained,  no  tangible  significance  accrues.  An  inquisitive  mind  is 
intent  on  unravelling  the  fabric  of  a  myth,  on  seeking  an  interpreta- 
tion of  its  origin.  If  myth  it  is,  how  did  the  myth  spring  into  exist- 
ence? As  there  is  a  logic  of  human  reasoning,  so  there  is  a  logic  of 
human  imagination.  The  imaginative  faculty  of  the  human  mind 
cannot  conceive  things  that  have  absolutely  no  reality  in  existence; 
the  product  of  our  imagination  is  always  elicited  by  something  that 
exists  or  that  we  have  reason  to  believe  to  exist. 


Introduction  9 

H.  G.  Wells,  who,  being  a  novelist  and  artist,  is  possessed  of  the 
insight,  vision,  and  intuition  which  most  scholars  lack,  is  on  the  right 
track  when  in  his  "Outline  of  History"  he  comments  on  the  Daedalus 
story  as  follows:  "Greek  legend  has  it  that  it  was  in  Crete  that  Daeda- 
lus attempted  to  make  the  first  flying-machine.  Daedalus  ('cunning 
artificer')  was  a  sort  of  personified  summary  of  mechanical  skill.  It  is 
curious  to  speculate  what  germ  of  fact  lies  behind  him  and  those 
waxen  wings  that,  according  to  the  legend,  melted  and  plunged  his 
son  Icarus  in  the  sea."  In  his  manner  of  reasoning  Wells  certainly 
is  superior  to  the  majority  of  schoolmasters  who  pitifully  dismiss 
Daedalus  as  a  myth. 

The  prehistory  of  mechanical  science  is  shrouded  in  mystery, 
because  primitive  man  was  unable  to  render  an  intelligent  account 
of  it.  In  the  same  manner  as  natural  phenomena  were  regarded  by 
him  as  wonders  or  miracles  wrought  by  supernatural  agencies,  so  any 
mechanical  devices  were  interpreted  as  the  outcome  of  witchcraft: 
the  skilled  artificer  and  every  investigator  and  experimenter  of  pre- 
historic and  early  historic  days  has  gone  down  in  history  or  tradition 
as  a  sorcerer,  enchanter,  wizard,  or  magician,  who  made  a  pact  with 
demoniacal  powers.  Many  of  these  so-called  magicians  were  simply 
clever  mechanics  whose  work  was  beyond  their  contemporaries'  com- 
prehension or  whose  achievements  were  so  singular  and  awe-inspiring 
that  supernatural  forces  were  believed  to  have  inspired  their  genius. 
This  is  the  reason  why  those  who  made  attempts  at  aerial  flights  are 
usually  associated  with  magic  and  necromantic  art  or  why  in  our 
middle  ages  solely  devils  and  witches  are  endowed  with  the  faculty 
of  flying.  John  Wilkins,  in  1648,  wrote  seriously,  "Witches  are  com- 
monly related  to  passe  unto  their  usual  meetings  in  some  remote 
place;  and  as  they  doe  sell  windes  unto  mariners,  so  likewise  are  they 
sometimes  hired  to  carry  men  speedily  through  the  open  air.  Acosta 
affirms  that  such  kind  of  passages  are  usuall  amongst  divers  sorcerers 
with  Indians  at  this  day.  So  Kepler  in  his  Astronomicall  dream  doth 
fancy  a  witch  to  be  conveyed  to  the  moon  by  her  Familian." 

The  ancient  traditions  regarding  mechanical  wonders  must  there- 
fore be  divested  of  their  legendary  garb  and  exposed  in  their  historical 
nucleus.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  always  the  marvelous  and  romantic 
that  lingers  in  the  memory  of  man.  The  dry  and  bare  bones  of  his- 
torical events  are  apt  to  be  relegated  to  the  wastebasket  of  oblivion. 
We  do  not  retain  in  our  minds  the  dates  of  wars  and  battles  or  the 
chronological  tables  of  dynasties  we  had  to  memorize  in  school,  but 
we  remember  many  heroes  by  anecdotes  and  bons  mots  which  the 


10  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

stern  historian  will  frown  at  as  unauthentic.  No  historian's  pen  has 
preserved  a  record  of  the  Trojan  War,  but  Homer  has  sung  it  in  the 
form  of  epic  poetry  which  has  been  enjoyed  by  a  hundred  generations 
and  which  has  been  more  often  read  than  any  accurate  report  of  a 
war  published  by  the  competent  staff  of  any  war  ministry.  Alex- 
ander the  Great  is  not  remembered  by  Oriental  nations  as  their  con- 
queror, but  as  a  deified  hero  of  marvelous  exploits,  as  he  appears  in 
the  Greek  Romance  going  under  his  name.  Therefore  it  is  just  man's 
ingrained  love  for  the  fabulous  and  fanciful,  for  the  wondrous  and 
extraordinary  to  which  we  are  indebted  for  the  preservation  of 
ancient  records  of  flight. 

In  the  same  manner  as  astrology  was  the  precursor  of  astronomy 
and  alchemy  evolved  into  the  science  of  chemistry,  so  there  is  an 
abundance  of  primitive  lore  which  godfathers  the  history  of  aviation. 
To  distinguish  that  primeval  stage  from  aviation  as  an  accomplished 
fact  of  the  present  time,  we  might  coin  for  the  former  the  new  term 
"aviology"  in  imitation  of  astrology,  but  the  public  mind  is  suffi- 
ciently alarmed  by  an  exuberance  of  ologies,  and  it  is  therefore  pre- 
ferable to  speak  simply  of  the  prehistory  of  aviation.  It  must  not  be 
imagined  that  the  latter  is  set  apart  as  a  thing  in  itself,  fundamentally 
distinct  from  the  history  of  aviation.  The  two,  in  fact,  are  closely 
allied  and  interwoven,  inseparable,  merging  into  each  other,  and  the 
recent  historical  development  is  unintelligible  without  a  knowledge 
of  its  prehistoric  setting  and  background.  Thus,  it  will  be  seen,  our 
aeroplanes  are  pedigreed  from  kites  which  have  their  origin  in  China. 
Our  modern  progress  in  aviation  is  not  solely  due  to  efforts  of  the 
present  generation,  stupendous  and  admirable  as  they  may  be,  but 
presents  the  process  of  a  gradual  evolution  of  ideas  which  have  grown 
out  of  the  imagination,  endeavors,  experiments,  triumphs,  and 
failures  of  many  past  ages.  Stress  must  be  laid  on  the  word  "imagi- 
nation," for  there  is  no  field  of  human  exertions  in  which  imagination 
and  romantic  dreams  have  played  a  greater  role  and  have  proved 
more  fertile  than  in  the  development  of  aviation.  Intuition,  romance, 
and  adventure  are  its  leading  motives;  for  man,  from  the  very  mo- 
ment he  had  grown  into  a  full-fledged  human  being,  never  lived  on 
bread  and  love  alone.  We  have  conquered  the  air  in  this  age  of 
science  and  unprecedented  progress  of  mechanics,  but  in  the  last 
instance  this  conquest  goes  back  to  the  trend  of  man's  mind  toward 
the  romantic  and  adventurous.  Describing  merely  the  gradual  per- 
fection of  mechanical  devices  does  not  make  a  complete  history  of 
aviation.   It  is  the  spirit  and  the  idea  behind  the  devices  that  count, 


Introduction  11 

the  idea  itself  means  everything.  The  will  to  fly  is  the  will  to  conquer, 
and  this  will  has  pervaded  the  hearts  of  men  in  the  earliest  stages  of 
the  great  civilizations  of  Asia. 

Many  visions  and  reveries  of  the  Orient  have  been  brought  true 
by  modern  inventions,  but  the  Orient  merits  credit  for  the  genesis  of 
the  idea.  The  notion  of  Roentgen  rays,  for  instance,  was  anticipated 
both  in  ancient  China  and  India.  The  Chinese  have  several  accounts 
concerning  metal  mirrors  which  would  light  up  the  interior  organs  of 
the  human  body.  The  emperor  Ts'in  Shi  (259-210  B.C.)  is  credited 
with  the  possession  of  such  a  mirror  which  was  styled  "the  precious 
mirror  that  would  illuminate  the  bones  of  the  body,"  or  "the  mirror 
illuminating  the  gall."  This  mirror  was  discovered  in  the  palace  of 
the  Ts'in  emperors  at  Hien-yang  in  Shen-si  Province  by  the  founder 
of  the  Han  dynasty  in  206  B.C.,  and  is  described  as  follows:  "It  was 
a  rectangular  mirror  four  feet  wide,  five  feet  and  nine  inches  high, 
brilliant  both  on  its  outer  and  inner  sides.  When  a  man  stood  straight 
before  it  to  see  his  reflection,  his  image  appeared  reversed.  When 
some  one  placed  his  hands  on  his  heart,  he  observed  his  five  viscera 
placed  side  by  side  and  not  impeded  by  any  obstacle.  When  a  man 
had  a  hidden  malady  within  his  organs,  he  could  recognize  the  seat 
of  his  complaint  by  looking  into  this  mirror  and  laying  his  hands  on 
his  heart.  Moreover,  when  a  woman  had  perverse  sentiments,  her 
gall  would  swell  and  her  heart  palpitate.  The  emperor  Ts'in  Shi 
therefore  constantly  availed  himself  of  this  mirror  to  test  the 
women  of  his  seraglio:  those  whose  gall  would  swell  and  whose 
heart  would  be  agitated,  he  ordered  to  be  killed." 

Jivaka,  a  celebrated  physician  of  ancient  India  and  contemporary 
of  Gautama  Buddha,  called  the  king  of  doctors,  at  least  had  the  idea 
that  it  was  necessary  to  illuminate  the  organs  of  the  body  for  the 
purpose  of  making  a  diagnosis  and  perform  surgical  operations.  He 
practised  trephining,  and  this  appeared  to  his  contemporaries  so 
wondrous  that  it  was  interwoven  with  many  legends.  Jivaka  is 
said  to  have  discovered  in  a  load  of  fagots  a  marvelous  gem  possessed 
of  the  virtue  that  "when  placed  before  an  invalid,  it  illuminated  his 
body  as  a  lamp  lights  up  all  objects  in  a  house,  and  so  revealed  the 
nature  of  his  malady."  He  laid  this  gem  on  the  head  of  a  sick  man, 
and  found  that  there  was  a  centipede  inside  of  his  head  (probably  a 
brain  tumor) ;  he  opened  his  skull  with  an  instrument  and  pulled  the 
centipede  out  with  a  pair  of  heated  pincers,  whereupon  the  patient 
recovered.  According  to  another  version,  it  was  a  piece  of  wood 
from  a  tree,  called  "the  king  of  physicians,"  which  enabled  Jivaka 


12  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

to  see  plainly  the  five  viscera,  the  intestines,  and  the  stomach;  and 
he  availed  himself  of  a  golden  knife  in  opening  the  skull. 

True  it  is  that  the  first  actual  bombardments  from  the  air  took 
place  but  recently  during  the  World  War,  but  the  idea  itself  is  not 
novel.  It  was  forestalled  in  the  seventeenth  century  by  Francesco 
Lana  (below,  p.  22),  and  the  first  air-bombardier  was  the  giant  bird 
Rukh  when  he  hurled  huge  bowlders  at  Sindbad's  ship. 

The  story  of  a  flying  Uganda  warrior  who  engaged  in  efficient 
bombardments  from  the  air  was  graphically  recorded  in  1871  by  the 
famous  explorer,  Henry  M.  Stanley,  in  his  work  "Through  the  Dark 
Continent" : — 

"One  of  the  heroes  of  Nakivingi  [one  of  the  ancient  kings  of 
Uganda, — the  Charlemagne  of  Uganda,  as  Stanley  calls  him]  was  a 
warrior  named  Kibaga,  who  possessed  the  power  of  flying.  When  the 
king  warred  with  the  Wanyoro,  he  sent  Kibaga  into  the  air  to  ascer- 
tain the  whereabouts  of  the  foe,  who,  when  discovered  by  this  extra- 
ordinary being,  were  attacked  on  land  in  their  hiding-places  by 
Nakivingi,  and  from  above  by  the  active  and  faithful  Kibaga,  who 
showered  great  rocks  on  them  and  by  these  means  slew  a  vast  number. 
It  happened  that  among  the  captives  of  Unyoro  Kibaga  saw  a 
beautiful  woman,  who  was  solicited  by  the  king  in  marriage.  As 
Nakivingi  was  greatly  indebted  to  Kibaga  for  his  unique  services, 
he  gave  her  to  Kibaga  as  wife,  with  a  warning,  however,  not  to 
impart  the  knowledge  of  his  power  to  her,  lest  she  should  betray  him. 
For  a  long  time  after  the  marriage  his  wife  knew  nothing  of  his  power, 
but  suspecting  something  strange  in  him  from  his  repeated  sudden 
absences  and  reappearances  at  his  home,  she  set  herself  to  watch  him, 
and  one  morning  as  he  left  his  hut,  she  was  surprised  to  see  him  sud- 
denly mount  into  the  air  with  a  burden  of  rocks  slung  on  his  back. 
On  seeing  this  she  remembered  that  Wanyoro  complaining  that 
more  of  their  people  were  killed  by  some  means  from  above  than  by 
the  spears  of  Nakivingi,  and  Delilah-like,  loving  her  race  and  her 
people  more  than  she  loved  her  husband,  she  hastened  to  her  people's 
camp,  and  communicated,  to  the  surprise  of  the  Wanyoro,  what  she 
had  that  day  learned.  To  avenge  themselves  on  Kibaga,  the  Wanyoro 
set  archers  in  ambush  on  the  summits  of  each  lofty  hill,  with  instruc- 
tions to  confine  themselves  to  watching  the  air  and  listening  for  the 
brushing  of  his  wings,  and  to  shoot  their  arrows  in  the  direction  of 
the  sound,  whether  anything  was  seen  or  not.  By  this  means  on  a 
certain  day,  as  Nakivingi  marched  to  the  battle,  Kibaga  was  wound- 
ed to  the  death  by  an  arrow,  and  upon  the  road  large  drops  of  blood 


Introduction  13 

were  seen  falling,  and  on  coming  to  a  tall  tree  the  king  detected  a 
dead  body  entangled  in  its  branches.  When  the  tree  was  cut  down, 
Nakivingi  saw  to  his  infinite  sorrow  that  it  was  the  body  of  his 
faithful  flying  warrior  Kibaga." 

If  this  tradition  had  been  recorded  in  recent  years,  we  should  be 
inclined  to  trace  it  to  the  influence  of  World-War  stories  spreading 
to  Africa,  but  it  was  recorded  by  Stanley  in  1871  when  there  were 
no  Zeppelins  and  aeroplanes  in  sight. 


In  the  seventeenth  century  Joseph  Glanvill  predicted  that  to 
future  ages  it  might  become  "as  ordinary  to  buy  a  pair  of  wings  to 
fly  into  remotest  regions,  as  it  then  was  to  buy  a  pair  of  boots." 

John  Logan,  a  Scotch  poet  of  the  eighteenth  century,  has  the 

lines: — 

Oh  could  I  fly,  I'd  fly  with  thee! 

We'd  make  with  joyful  wing 
Our  annual  visit  o'er  the  globe, 

Companions  of  the  spring. 

Erasmus  Darwin  (1731-1802),  grandfather  of  Charles  Darwin, 
in  his  The  Botanic  Garden  (1789),  utters  the  prophetic  words: — 

Soon  shall  thy  arm,  unconquer'd  steam!  afar 
Drag  the  slow  barge,  or  drive  the  rapid  car; 
Or  on  wide-waving  wings  expanded  bear 
The  flying  chariot  through  the  field  of  air. 

In  1907  Dr.  Alexander  Graham  Be\\  wrote,  "It  has  long  been 
recognized  by  a  growing  school  of  thinners  that  an  aerial  vehicle,  in 
order  to  cope  with  the  wind,  should  be  specifically  heavier  than  the 
air  through  which  it  moves.  This  position  is  supported  by  the  fact 
that  all  of  nature's  flying  models,  from  the  smallest  insect  to  the 
largest  bird,  are  specifically  heavier  than  air  in  which  they  fly,  most 
of  them  many  hundreds  of  times  heavier,  and  that  none  of  them  adopts 
the  balloon  principle  in  flight ...  It  is  certainly  the  case  that  the 
tendency  of  aerial  research  is  to-day  reverting  more  and  more  to  the 
old  lines  of  investigation  that  were  pursued  for  hundreds  of  years 
before  the  invention  of  the  balloon  diverted  attention  from  the  sub- 
ject. The  old  devices  have  been  re-invented;  the  old  experiments 
have  been  tried  once  more.  Again,  the  birds  are  recognized  as  the 
true  models  of  flight,  and  again  men  have  put  on  wings,  but  this 
time  with  more  promise  of  success." 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  FLYING  IN  ANCIENT  CHINA 

Among  the  many  singular  coincidences  of  events  that  loom  up  in 
ancient  books  of  the  East  and  the  West,  none  perhaps  is  more  capti- 
vating than  that  an  imperial  flyer  appears  at  the  threshold  of  the 
earliest  recorded  history  of  China  and  that  a  royal  flyer  opens  the 
chapter  of  the  early  history  of  Great  Britain. 

Bladud,  the  legendary  tenth  king  of  Britain,  father  of  King  Lear 
and  founder  of  Bath,  is  said  to  have  made  wings  of  feathers  by  means 
of  which  he  attempted  an  aerial  flight  that  unfortunately  resulted  in 
his  death  in  852  before  our  era.  This  story  is  recorded  by  Geoffrey  of 
Monmouth  (A.D.  1100-54)  in  his  Historia  Regum  Britanniae,  written 
in  or  about  the  year  1147  (first  printed  in  1508).  Naturally,  Bladud 
is  made  by  tradition  a  necromancer  and  performer  of  magical  tricks, 
in  the  same  manner  as  attempts  at  flying  were  connected  with  magic 
in  China  and  elsewhere. 

The  Chinese  emperor  Shun,  who  lived  in  the  third  millennium 
before  our  era  (traditional  date  2258-2208  B.C.),  is  not  only  the  first 
flyer  recorded  in  history,  but  also  the  very  first  who  made  a 
successful  descent  in  a  parachute, — an  experiment  first  made  or  re- 
peated in  the  midst  of  our  civilization  as  late  as  A.D.  1783. 

Shun's  early  life  teemed  with  thrilling  adventures.  His  mother 
died  when  he  was  quite  young.  His  father,  Ku  Sou,  himself  of  im- 
perial descent,  took  a  second  wife  by  whom  he  had  a  son.  He  grew 
very  fond  of  his  offspring  from  this  new  union,  but  gradually  con- 
ceived a  dislike  for  Shun,  which  resulted  in  several  conspiracies 
against  the  poor  youngster's  life.  In  each  case,  however,  he  was 
miraculously  rescued,  and  in  spite  of  severe  persecution  continued  in 
exemplary  and  dutiful  conduct  toward  his  father  and  stepmother. 
By  his  filial  piety  he  attracted  the  attention  of  the  wise  and  worthy 
emperor  Yao  whose  name  is  suggestive  of  China's  golden  age.  Yao 
had  two  gifted  daughters,  Nu  Ying  and  O  Huang,  who  instructed 
Shun  in  the  "art  of  flying  like  a  bird."  In  the  commentary  to  the 
Annals  of  the  Bamboo  Books  (that  is,  records  inscribed  on  tablets  of 
bamboo),  an  authentic  ancient  historical  book,  Shun  is  indeed  de- 
scribed as  a  flyer.  There  it  is  written,  "Shun's  parents  detested  him. 
They  made  him  plaster  a  granary  and  set  fire  to  it  at  its  foundation. 
Shun  donned  the  work-clothes  of  a  bird,  and  flying  made  his  escape." 
Then  his  parents  caused  him  to  descend  a  deep  well  and  heaped  stones 
on  top  of  it.  Shun  donned  the  work-clothes  of  a  dragon  and  crawled 

14 


The  Romance  of  Flying  in  Ancient  China  15 

out  of  the  well  from  the  side.  He  was  endowed  with  a  dragon's 
countenance  and  thus  shared  the  dragon's  natural  ability  to  fly  and 
to  crawl.  Shun  was  not  a  notoriety  seeker;  he  did  not  fly  for  the  sake 
of  glory  or  establishing  a  record;  he  flew  because  sheer  necessity 
compelled  him  to  fly  to  save  his  soul.  For  this  purpose  he  availed 
himself  of  a  flying  apparatus  based  on  the  principle  of  bird-flight. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Se-ma  Ts'ien,  the  father  of  history,  as  he  is 
justly  called,  has  preserved  the  following  tradition.  Ku  Sou  bade  his 
son  Shun  build  a  granary  and  ascend  it,  and  thereupon  set  the  struc- 
ture on  fire.  Shun,  who  stood  on  top  of  the  tower,  spread  out  two 
large  reed  hats  which  he  used  as  a  parachute  in  making  his  descent, 
and  landed  on  the  ground  unscathed.  Considering  the  fact  that 
Chinese  reed  hats  are  umbrella-shaped,  circular,  and  very  large  in 
diameter  (some  such  hats  in  the  Museum's  collection  from  Korea 
measure  two  feet  three  inches  to  three  feet  in  diameter),  this  feat 
would  not  seem  impossible.  In  the  use  of  the  parachute  the  Chinese 
have  forestalled  us  a  considerable  span  of  time;  for  Leonardo  da 
Vinci  (1452-1519),  the  great  artist,  scientist,  and  mechanician,  was 
the  first  in  our  midst  who  conceived  the  idea  of  the  parachute. 
Leonardo  writes,  "If  a  man  have  a  tent  roof  of  calked  linen  twelve 
yards  broad  and  as  many  yards  high,  he  will  be  able  to  let  himself 
fall  from  any  great  height  without  danger  to  himself."  In  one  of  his 
manuscripts  he  has  also  given  the  figure  of  a  man  descending  with 
this  kind  of  parachute.  About  1595  Fausto  Veranzio,  a  Venetian, 
published  a  modified  design,  doubtless  inspired  by  Leonardo's  sketch, 
in  which  a  sort  of  square  sail  extended  by  four  rods  of  equal  size  is 
used.  There  is,  however,  one  great  difference  between  Leonardo  and 
Shun:  the  former  was  merely  a  theorist  who  never  used  a  parachute, 
while  the  latter  really  performed  the  trick.  The  first  real  descent  in  a 
parachute  in  Europe  was  not  made  till  1783  when  Lenormand  carried 
out  a  successful  experiment  from  an  observatory  at  Montpellier. 

To  complete  Shun's  story, — he  married  the  two  sisters,  his  teach- 
ers in  the  art  of  flying;  and  Yao,  his  father-in-law,  gave  him  a  share 
in  the  government  of  the  empire.  On  the  latter's  death  he  succeeded 
to  the  throne  and  ruled  as  the  model  of  a  good  and  wise  sovereign. 

Chinese  writers  fable  about  a  country  of  Flying  Folks  (Yii  min)K 
located  in  an  island  in  the  south-eastern  ocean,  living  on  high  peaks 
near  the  sea-shore,  and  described  as  people  with  long  jaws,  bird's- 
beaks,  red  eyes,  white  heads,  covered  with  hair  and  feathers,  able  to 
fly,  but  not  over  a  long  distance;  they  are  said  to  resemble  human 
beings,  but  to  be  born  from  eggs.    The  conception  of  bird-men  is 


16  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

quite  familiar  to  ancient  Chinese  mythology.  A  deity  with  outspread 
wings,  seated  on  a  pedestal,  is  shown  on  the  pediment  of  a  grave- 
stone of  the  Han  period  (Plate  I),  from  about  the  middle  of  the 
second  century  of  our  era.  Winged  attendants  fly  above  him,  and 
others  approach  him,  holding  gifts  or  offerings.  On  the  left  are  two 
kneeling  figures,  holding  tablets  in  the  attitude  of  adoration,  the 
first  with  a  horse's-head,  the  second  with  a  bird's-head,  both  winged, 
but  for  the  rest  human  and  clad  in  wide,  long  gowns.  Behind  this 
pair  appears  a  walking  bird  with  long  tail-feathers,  but  with  human 
head,  holding  the  leaf  of  a  plant.  This  picture  represents  the  abode  of 
the  aerial  spirits.  In  Assyrian-Babylonian  monuments  winged  figures, 
man-headed  or  bird-headed,  are  frequent,  but  they  are  always  repre- 
sented standing  or  walking,  never  flying,  which  makes  for  a  net 
distinction  from  the  Chinese  flying  bird-men.  As  in  the  sculptures  of 
Mesopotamia  winged  bulls,  lions,  griffins,  and  horses  appear,  so  we 
meet  also  in  China  statues  and  relief  representations  of  winged  mon- 
sters, tigers,  lions,  and  horses. 

Lei  Kung,  god  of  thunder  and  lightning,  has  wings  attached  to  his 
shoulders,  usually  wings  of  a  bat,  and  by  means  of  these  appendages 
he  directs  his  course  through  the  air  to  wherever  he  desires  to  produce 
a  thunder-storm.  ■ 

Tung  Yung,  a  legendary  personage,  who  is  supposed  to  have  lived 
in  the  second  century  of  our  era,  was  rewarded  for  his  filial  piety  by 
the  Spinning  Damsel,  an  astral  deity,  from  whom  he  received  two 
boys  whom  she  had  deposed  under  an  elm-tree.  One  of  these  had 
under  his  arm-pits  fleshy  excrescences  in  the  shape  of  wings,  and  his 
face  displayed  a  bird's-beak.  When  grown  up,  he  excelled  in  muscular 
strength  and  supported  his  father  and  younger  brother  with  the  fruit 
of  his  manual  labor.  His  employer  complained  of  his  insatiable 
appetite,  but  was  pleased,  as  he  performed  the  work  of  two  men. 
One  day  the  bird-man  announced  that  his  mother  had  appeared  to 
him  the  previous  night,  inviting  them  to  rejoin  her;  then  he  unfolded 
his  wings,  shouldered  his  father,  and  sailed  up  skyward. 

"Ascending  to  heaven  by  means  of  flight"  is  expressed  in  Chinese 
"by  means  of  feathers  he  was  transformed  and  ascended  as  an  im- 
mortal"; and  "feather  scholar"  or  "feather  guest"  is  a  term  for  a 
Taoist  priest. 

Winged  flight,  however,  appears  but  seldom  as  a  real  attempt. 
The  emperor  Shun  is  practically  the  sole  example,  and  seems  to  have 
found  few  imitators,  quite  in  distinction  from  Daedalus,  whose  feat 


The  Romance  of  Flying  in  Ancient  China  17 

has  stimulated  so  many  until  recent  times.    Another  instance  of 
winged  flight  known  to  me  is  one  that  occurs  in  a  dream. 

T'ao  K'an,  a  celebrated  Chinese  statesman  (A.D.  209-334),  once 
had  a  dream  which  led  to  his  advancement.  He  dreamt  that  he 
scaled  the  heights  of  heaven  with  the  aid  of  eight  wings,  and  passed 
through  eight  of  the  celestial  doors,  but  was  driven  back  from  the 
ninth  by  the  warder,  who  cast  him  down  to  earth.  When  he  landed 
there,  the  wings  on  his  left  side  were  broken.  Subsequently  he  en- 
tered public  life,  and  was  appointed  governor  of  eight  provinces, 
which  was  interpreted  as  a  realization  of  his  dream. 


The  first  description  of  an  air-journey  is  found  in  the  celebrated 
poem  Li  Sao  ("Fallen  into  Sorrow")  by  K'ii  Yuan  (332-295  B.C.),  a 
loyal  statesman,  who  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  his  sovereign  until 
impeached  through  the  intrigues  of  rivals.  Despondent  over  his  dis- 
grace and  concious  of  his  own  integrity,  he  found  solace  in  composing 
a  poem,  which  is  an  allegorical  picture  of  his  search  after  a  prince  who 
would  listen  to  good  counsels  in  government.  The  poet  kneels  at  the 
grave  of  the  emporer  Shun,  and  is  then  carried  up  into  the  air  in  a 
chariot  built  in  the  form  of  a  phoenix  to  which  are  yoked  four  dragons 
smooth  as  jade.  In  this  vehicle,  through  dust  and  wind,  he  suddenly 
ascends  on  high  toward  the  K'un-lun  range  of  mountains.  Wang-shu, 
the  charioteer  of  the  moon,  is  his  precursor,  and  Fei-lien,  god  of  winds, 
follows  him  as  attendant. 

I  ordered  the  phoenix  to  fly  aloft, 

And  continue  its  flight  day  and  night.  , 

But  a  whirlwind  brought  together  my  opponents, — 

Clouds  and  rainbow  were  led  to  meet  and  oppose  me. 

In  multitudes  they  assembled,  now  dividing,  now  collecting. 

In  confusion  they  separated,  some  going  above,  others  beneath. 

In  his  search  he  surveys  the  earth  to  its  four  extreme  points,  travels 
all  over  the  sky,  and  then  descends  to  the  earth.  Again  he  undertakes 
a  journey  into  the  air  above  the  Kun-lun  Mountains,  in  a  chariot 
adorned  with  jade  and  ivory  drawn  by  a  team  of  eight  flying  dragons. 

I  turned  my  course  to  K'un-lun; 

Long  was  the  way,  and  far  and  wide  did  I  wander, 

Amidst  the  dark  shade  were  displayed  the  rainbows  in  the  clouds, 

While  the  jade  bells  about  the  chariot  tinkled. 

I  started  in  the  morning  from  the  Ford  of  the  Sky, 

And  in  the  evening  I  arrived  at  the  extreme  west. 

The  idea  of  a  flying  chariot  or  airship,  usually  drawn  by  dragons, 
is  not  alien  to  ancient  Chinese  art.  An  aerial  contest  of  winged  beings 


18  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

astride  scaly  and  horned  dragons  (Plates  II-III)  is  skilfully  repre- 
sented on  a  grave-stone  of  the  Han  period  (second  century  A.D.). 
This  picture  is  animated  by  life  and  motion:  an  exalted  winged  god  is 
enthroned  in  a  flying  chariot  set  in  motion  by  fleet  dragons  and  float- 
ing over  clouds.  The  pilot  of  the  airship  is  leaning  forward,  tapping 
a  dragon's  tail  as  though  eager  to  spur  him  on.  Two  winged  standard- 
bearers  mounted  on  swiftly  moving  dragons  follow  the  car  as  escorts. 
Four  dragon-riders  precede  it,  and  the  procession  moves  on  toward 
a  winged  flag-bearer  standing  on  a  cloud,  while  another  person  kneels 
in  front  of  him.  The  clouds  are  represented  as  birds  on  the  wing, 
their  bodies  consisting  of  spirals  which  are  symbolic  of  clouds. 

Huang  Ti,  one  of  the  ancient  legendary  emperors,  attained  im- 
mortality by  mounting  a  fantastic  creature  with  the  body  of  a  horse 
and  wings  of  a  dragon  (called  tse-huang  or  ch'eng-huang).  According 
to  another  version  of  the  legend,  he  made  his  ascent  on  a  long-bearded 
dragon  strong  enough  to  transport  also  his  wives  and  ministers, — 
more  than  seventy  persons.  The  officials  of  lower  rank  who  were  not 
able  to  find  a  seat  on  the  dragon's  back  (not  unlike  the  strap-hangers 
in  our  street-cars)  clung  to  the  hairs  of  the  dragon's  beard;  these, 
however,  gave  way,  the  passengers  plunged  to  the  ground  and  also 
dropped  the  emperor's  bow.  The  multitude  of  spectators  reveren- 
tially watched  the  apotheosis  from  a  distance,  and  when  Huang  Ti  had 
reached  his  destination  in  heaven,  they  picked  up  his  bow  and  the 
dragon's  hairs.  This  story  is  a  cheery  example  of  the  Chinese  sense  of 
humor:  other  myth-framers  would  have  been  prone  to  push  their 
principles  to  extremes  and,  endowing  the  dragon's  beard  with  divine 
strength,  would  have  conveyed  the  strap-hangers  straight  heaven- 
ward. 

Under  the  reign  of  the  emperor  Ts'in  Shi  (259-210  B.C.),  Mao 
Mong,  great  grandfather  of  Mao  Ying,  styled  "the  true  man  of  sub- 
lime origin,"  ascended  Mount  Hua,  mounted  the  clouds  and  bestrode 
a  dragon  which  was  hidden  in  the  clouds,  rising  into  the  azure  spaces 
of  heaven  in  broad  daylight. 

In  a  hymn  to  the  god  of  Heaven  composed  under  the  emperor  Wu 
(140-87  B.C.)  of  the  Han  dynasty,  the  deity  appears  amid  dark 
clouds  in  a  chariot  drawn  by  winged  flying  dragons  and  adorned  with 
many  feathered  streamers;  the  rapidity  with  which  the  deity  descends 
is  compared  with  that  of  the  horses  of  the  wind. 

Pei  Ti,  god  (literally,  "emperor")  of  the  north,  much  worshipped 
at  Canton  under  the  name  Pak  Tai,  was  after  a  long  career  of  holiness 
elected  to  the  office  of  chief  minister  of  the  gods.  Angelic  messengers 


The  Romance  of  Flying  in  Ancient  China  19 

descended  from  heaven,  presenting  him  with  silk  robes,  red  shoes, 
flying  swords,  and  a  chariot  of  nine  colors  in  which  he  ascended  to  the 
celestial  abode  at  the  time  of  the  reign  of  Huang  Ti. 

When  the  mind  of  a  nation  is  filled  with  the  romance  of  the  air, 
when  the  air  surrounding  it  is  populated  with  winged  genii  and  flying 
chariots,  and  when  such  subjects  are  glorified  by  art  and  adorn  the 
stone  walls  of  the  grave  chambers,  it  is  the  logical  step  that  imagina- 
tion thus  impregnated  leads  one  or  the  other  to  attempt  the  construc- 
tion of  some  kind  of  an  airship. 

The  Ti  wang  shi  ki  ("History  of  the  Ancient  Emperors"),  written 
by  Huang-fu  Mi  (A.D.  215-282),  contains  this  notice: — 

"Ki-kung-shi  was  able  to  make  a  flying  chariot  which  driven  by  a 
fair  wind  travelled  a  great  distance.  At  the  time  of  the  emperor 
Ch'eng  T'ang  (1766-54  B.C.,  founder  of  the  Shang  dynasty)  the  west 
wind  blew  Ki-kung's  chariot  as  far  as  Yu-chou  (Ho-nan).  The  em- 
peror ordered  this  chariot  to  be  destroyed  that  it  should  not  become 
known  to  the  people.  Ten  years  later  when  the  east  wind  blew,  the 
emperor  caused  another  chariot  of  this  kind  to  be  built  by  Ki-kung 
and  sent  him  back  in  it." 

The  term  "flying  chariot"  (fei  ch'o)  used  in  this  passage  is  now 
current  in  China  for  the  designation  of  an  aeroplane. 

A  similar  account  is  contained  in  the  Po  wu  chi,  written  by  Chang 
Hua  in  the  third  century  of  our  era,  but  with  the  difference  that  the 
invention  of  the  flying  chariot  is  ascribed  to  the  Ki-kung  nation. 
A  tribe  of  this  name  is  mentioned  in  the  Shan  hai  king  ("Book  of 
Mountains  and  Seas"),  an  ancient  collection  of  (partially  absurd) 
geographical  fables,  where  the  Ki-kung  are  characterized  as  single- 
armed  (the  very  name  means  "one  upper  arm"),  three-eyed,  herma- 
phrodites, and  riding  on  striped  horses.  Shen  Yo  (A.D.  411-513),  the 
commentator  of  the  Bamboo  Annals,  speaks  of  the  Ki-kung  or  their 
chief  as  having  arrived  in  a  chariot  at  the  court  of  the  emperor  Ch'eng 
T'ang  in  1766  B.C.,  but  he  says  nothing  of  a  flying  chariot,  nor  does 
the  Shan  hai  Jang,  which  attributes  to  them  horses  as  means  of  con- 
veyance. At  the  outset  it  is  hardly  probable  that  single-armed  herma- 
phrodites should  have  a  special  talent  for  aviation.  It  is  therefore 
obvious  that  in  the  above  notice  of  the  Po  wu  chi  two  distinct  tradi- 
tions are  contaminated :  there  was,  in  my  opinion,  an  individual  who 
lived  in  times  of  antiquity,  Ki-kung  by  name,  who  invented  an  airship 
or  endeavored  at  least  to  construct  one;  and  there  was  also  a  tradition 
current  about  a  fabulous  tribe  accidentally  bearing  the  same  name, 
which  had  nothing  to  do  with  aviation;  because,  however,  the  Ki- 


20  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

kung  people  arrived  at  the  imperial  court  in  chariots,  it  was  easy  to 
confound  or  identify  these  chariots  with  the  flying  chariot  made  by 
the  mechanic,  Ki-kung  by  name.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  suspicious 
that  the  latter  also  is  supposed  to  have  come  to  the  court  of  Ch'eng 
T'ang,  and  this  date  is  surely  the  outcome  of  an  afterthought  and 
devoid  of  historical  value.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  interesting  point  to 
be  retained  is  that  the  Chinese  possess  an  apparently  old  tradition 
regarding  an  airship  driven  by  the  force  of  the  winds. 

A  wood  engraving  of  what  in  the  estimation  of  Chinese  draughts- 
men this  airship  looked  like  is  on  record  and  reproduced  in  Plate  IV. 
Here  we  see  two  men  standing  in  a  square,  box-like  affair,  with  flags 
flying,  comfortably  sailing  in  the  clouds;  the  car  is  set  in  motion  by 
two  curious  wheels.  It  will  be  noted  that  the  two  men  are  just  human, 
having  two  eyes  and  two  arms;  and  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that 
this  illustration  is  not  contemporaneous  with  the  story,  nor  is  it 
handed  down  from  ancient  times,  but  that  it  is  of  comparatively 
recent  origin  and  merely  reconstructed  upon  the  slender  fabric  of  the 
ancient  tradition.  It  has  as  much  value  for  the  reconstruction  of  the 
airship  in  question  as,  for  instance,  Dora's  illustrations  of  the  Bible 
have  for  the  reconstruction  of  ancient  Hebrew  life  and  archaeology. 
Professor  Giles,  who  first  called  attention  to  this  drawing  in  his 
article  "Traces  of  Aviation  in  Ancient  China,"  has  also  published  an 
earlier  woodcut  of  the  same  subject,  taken  from  a  rare  book  in  the 
Cambridge  University  Library,  that  was  published  in  China  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  fourteenth  century;  the  Ki-kung  car  illustrated  in 
this  book,  aside  from  minor  details,  is  practically  identical  with  the 
later  production  aforementioned.  Professor  Giles  adds  this  inter- 
esting comment:  "It  is  noticeable  at  once  that  the  occupants  of  the 
car,  especially  in  the  later  illustration,  are  not  one-armed.  Also,  that 
the  wheels  fore  and  aft  are  at  right  angles  to  the  direction  in  which 
the  car  is  flying  through  rolling  clouds;  and  further,  what  is  most 
curious  of  all,  that  the  wheels  appear  to  be  constructed  on  the  screw 
system,  like  the  propeller  of  a  steamer.  Now,  in  the  published  de- 
scription of  Latham's  flying-machine,  we  read,  'For  the  cross-Channel 
flight  a  fifty  horsepower  Antoinette  motor  has  been  mounted.  This 
drives  a  screw  which,  placed  in  front  of  the  machine,  cleaves  a  way 
through  the  air,  pulling  the  machine  after  it.  It  is  called  a  tractor 
screw.' " 

In  the  attempt  to  reconstruct  the  flying  chariot,  the  Chinese 
draughtsman  stressed  the  second  part  of  the  compound  and  produced 
the  picture  of  a  two- wheeled  cart.  In  this  point  he  is  decidedly  wrong, 


The  Romance  of  Flying  in  Ancient  China  21 

for  a  vehicle  of  this  type  could  never  rise  into  the  air.  We  have  to  fall 
back  on  the  words  of  the  account  itself,  in  order  to  form  some  idea  of 
what  this  airship  might  have  been.  The  sole  indication  of  a  motive 
power  given  in  the  text  is  the  wind:  the  vehicle  in  question  depended 
upon  favorable  winds,  and  was  propelled  by  the  east  wind  if  it  wanted 
to  go  east,  and  by  the  west  wind  when  it  was  to  return  west.  For 
this  reason  it  cannot  be  presumed  that  a  car  or  chariot,  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  word,  is  involved.  The  word  ch'o,  which  means  a  "car," 
refers  also  to  machines,  engines,  or  contrivances  which  do  not  move; 
thus,  for  instance,  hua  ch'o  ("smooth  car")  signifies  a  "pulley";  shan 
ch'o  ("fan  car"),  a  "winnowing  mill."  Now,  as  far  as  ancient  China 
is  concerned,  there  were  only  two  devices  known  as  capable  of  setting 
a  vehicle  in  motion, — a  sail  and  a  kite.  As  to  sails,  the  Chinese  very 
efficiently  applied  them  (and  presumably  still  apply  them)  to  wheel- 
barrows, as  I  repeatedly  noticed  myself  on  my  travels  in  Shan-tung 
Province;  but  a  sail  alone  cannot  lift  any  vehicle  from  the  ground. 
This,  however,  may  be  accomplished  by  several  powerful  kites.  The 
Chinese  were  the  inventors  of  the  flying-kite,  as  will  be  set  forth  in 
the  following  chapter,  and  were  in  possession  of  kites  at  an  early  date, 
assuredly  in  the  third  century  of  our  era,  the  date  of  the  Ti  wang  ski 
hi.  I  imagine,  therefore,  that  Ki-kung's  "flying  chariot"  was  built  on 
the  aerostatic  principle,  being  driven  by  a  combination  of  sails  and 
kites,  and  was  very  much  like  the  kite-chariot  constructed  by  George 
Pocock  in  1826  and  discussed  in  detail  below  (p.  41).  The  "chariot" 
part  of  Ki-kung's  machine  may  have  been  a  very  simple  affair:  all  he 
needed  was  a  seat  for  himself,  which  may  have  been  made  of  light 
wood,  bamboo,  or  basketry. 

The  famous  boat-shaped  aerial  car,  theoretically  conceived  by  the 
Jesuit  Francesco  Lana  (1631-87),  is  reproduced  in  Plate  V,  not  for  its 
own  sake,  but  because  it  exhibits  some  affinity  with  Ki-kung's 
machine  and,  mutatis  mutandis,  may  help  us  visualize  it  to  better 
advantage.  It  was  Lana's  idea  of  lifting  his  ship  into  the  air  by  means 
of  four  large,  hollow  globes  of  very  thin  sheets  of  copper,  from  which 
the  air  had  been  wholly  extracted,  thereby  causing  them  to  weigh  less 
than  the  surrounding  atmosphere,  and  enabling  them  to  rise  and  sup- 
port the  weight  of  the  ship  in  the  air;  propulsion  and  direction  were 
to  be  obtained  by  sails  and  oars.  The  question  of  the  practicability 
of  this  proposal  does  not  concern  us  here;  what  I  wish  to  point  out  is 
merely  this,  that  if  in  Lana's  sketch  the  four  copper  globes  are  re- 
placed by  four  powerful  paper  kites,  we  may  realize  what  the  Chinese 
aerostat  might  have  been. 


22  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

The  Chinese  emperor,  in  the  above  story,  caused  the  airship  to  be 
destroyed,  as  he  did  not  wish  his  own  people  to  see  it.  He  evidently 
was  anxious  to  remain  intrenched  on  his  throne  and  to  steer  clear  of 
innovations  that  might  menace  the  safety  of  his  realm.  Francesco 
Lana,  in  his  Prodromo  (1670,  p.  61),  gives  us  the  best  explanation  of 
the  reasons  which  may  have  prompted  that  autocrat  to  his  action. 
Having  developed  his  plan  of  an  airship  with  sail  and  oars,  as  pointed 
out  above,  the  Jesuit  author  winds  up  thus:  "I  do  not  see  any  other 
difficulty  that  could  prevail  against  this  invention,  save  one,  which 
seems  to  me  weightier  than  all  others,  and  this  is  that  God  will  never 
permit  such  a  machine  to  be  constructed,  in  order  to  preclude  the 
numerous  consequences  which  might  disturb  the  civil  and  political 
government  among  men.  For  who  sees  not  that  no  city  would  be 
secure  from  surprise  attacks,  as  the  airship  might  appear  at  any  hour 
directly  over  its  market-square  and  would  land  there  its  crew?  The 
same  would  happen  to  the  courtyards  of  private  houses  and  to  ships 
crossing  the  sea,  for  the  airship  would  only  have  to  descend  out  of  the 
air  down  to  the  sails  of  the  sea-going  vessels  and  lop  their  cables. 
Even  without  descending,  it  could  hurl  iron  pieces  which  would  cap- 
size the  vessels  and  kill  men,  and  the  sh^ps  might  be  burnt  with  artifi- 
cial fire,  balls,  and  bombs.  This  might  be  done  not  only  to  ships,  but 
also  to  houses,  castles,  and  cities,  with  perfect  safety  for  those  who 
throw  such  missiles  down  from  an  enormous  height." 

The  first  author  in  Europe  who  discussed  the  possibility  of  a 
flying  chariot  was  John  Wilkins  (1614-72),  bishop  of  Chester  from 
1668  and  subsequently  Master  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  one  of 
the  founders  of  the  Royal  Society,  to  which  he  acted  as  first  secretary. 
His  writings,  particularly  his  "Mathematicall  Magick"  (1648),  con- 
tributed much  toward  arousing  public  interest  in  the  problem  of 
flight.  He  distinguishes  (p.  199)  "four  several  ways  whereby  this 
flying  in  the  air  hath  been  or  may  be  attempted.  Two  of  them  by  the 
strength  of  other  things,  and  two  of  them  by  our  own  strength:  1.  By 
spirits  or  angels.  2.  By  the  help  of  fowls.  3.  By  wings  fastened  im- 
mediately to  the  body.  4.  By  a  flying  chariot."  This  fourth  and  last 
way  seems  to  him  altogether  probable  and  much  more  useful  than 
any  of  the  rest.  "And  that  is  by  a  flying  chariot,  which  may  be  so 
contrived  as  to  carry  a  man  within  it;  and  though  the  strength  of  a 
spring  might  perhaps  be  serviceable  for  the  motion  of  this  engine,  yet 
it  were  better  to  have  it  assisted  by  the  labour  of  some  intelligent 
mover  as  the  heavenly  orbs  are  supposed  to  be  turned.  And  therefore 
if  it  were  made  big  enough  to  carry  sundry  persons  together,  then  each 


The  Romance  of  Flying  in  Ancient  China  23 

of  them  in  their  severall  turns  might  successively  labour  in  the  caus- 
ing of  this  motion;  which  thereby  would  be  much  more  constant  and 
lasting,  then  it  could  otherwise  be,  if  it  did  wholly  depend  on  the 
strength  of  the  same  person.  This  contrivance  being  as  much  to  be 
preferred  before  any  of  the  other,  as  swimming  in  a  ship  before  swim- 
ming in  water." 

Kung-shu  Tse,  also  called  Lu  Pan,  "the  mechanician  of  Lu," 
because  he  was  a  native  of  the  state  of  Lu  in  Shan-tung  Province,  was 
a  contemporary  of  Confucius  and  a  clever  mechanician.  In  the  work 
going  under  the  name  of  the  philosopher  Mo  Ti  (chap.  49)  who  lived 
in  the  fifth  century  before  our  era,  he  is  said  to  have  carved  a  magpie 
from  bamboo  and  wood;  when  completed,  he  caused  this  artificial 
bird  to  fly,  and  only  after  three  days  it  came  down  to  earth.  Accord- 
ing to  another  tradition,  Kung-shu  himself  made  an  ascent  riding  on 
a  wooden  kite  in  order  to  spy  on  a  city  which  he  desired  to  capture. 
Other  Chinese  writers  ascribe  the  manufacture  of  a  wooden  kite  to 
Mo  Ti,  or  to  the  collaboration  of  both  Kung-shu  Tse  and  Mo  Ti, 
saying  that  it  could  fly  for  three  days  without  resting.  Han  Fei,  a 
philosopher  of  the  third  century  before  our  era,  relates  that  Mo  Ti 
worked  for  three  years  at  a  wooden  kite,  but  that  after  flying  for  a 
single  day  it  was  smashed.  It  is  obvious  that  in  these  various  ac- 
counts there  is  a  confusion  of  "three  days"  and  "three  years,"  while 
no  clear  idea  is  conveyed  of  the  construction  and  mechanism  of  the 
artifact.  Some  Chinese  authors  regard  this  wooden  kite  as  the  be- 
ginning and  forerunner  of  the  later  toy,  the  paper  kite;  but  this  view 
seems  erroneous,  as  the  bird  is  described  as  being  carved  from  wood, 
and  as  paper  was  unknown  during  the  period  in  question.  It  appears 
to  have  been  rather  an  automatic,  mechanical  contrivance  that  was 
capable  of  rising  to  some  extent  into  the  air, — a  sort  of  affinity  to 
the  dove  of  Archytas  (p.  64).  Certain  it  is  that  it  was  not  Mo  Ti, 
as  asserted  by  Han  Fei  and  Lie-tse,  who  made  the  flying  kite:  in  the 
first  place,  Mo  Ti  was  a  philosopher  of  ethical  and  social  tendencies 
who  did  not  engage  in  manual  labor;  second,  Mo  Ti  himself  saw  it  fit 
to  condemn  the  invention  of  the  flying  kite  as  an  idle  and  useless 
plaything. 

Kung-shu  Tse  is  credited  with  several  other  inventions, — two 
kinds  of  a  grinding  mill  and  a  scaling-ladder  used  in  besieging  cities, 
known  as  "cloud-ladder"  (yun  t'i).  He  is  also  said  to  have  made 
wooden  horses  which  moved  by  means  of  springs  and  could  draw 
carriages;  or,  according  to  another  version,  he  made  for  his  mother 


24  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

a  wooden  coachman  who  drove  an  automobile.  At  present  Kung-shu 
Tse  is  worshipped  as  the  patron-saint  of  carpenters. 

There  is  a  curious  incident  on  record  in  the  Book  of  Rites  {Li  ki), 
which  illustrates  the  fact  that  even  in  his  youth  his  thoughts  were 
concentrated  on  problems  of  engineering  and  that  his  contemporaries 
were  averse  to  his  innovations.  A  certain  individual's  mother  had 
died,  and  Kung-shu  asked  leave  to  lower  the  coffin  into  the  grave  by 
means  of  a  new  mechanical  contrivance  invented  by  him.  Its  appli- 
cation was  objected  to  by  one  present  at  the  funeral  on  the  ground 
that  the  ancient  practices  of  the  principality  of  Lu  ought  to  be  up- 
held, and  it  was  ironically  suggested  to  the  inventor  that  he  should 
test  his  ingenuity  rather  on  his  own  mother  than  on  that  of  another 
man. 

It  is  small  wonder  that  later  legends  have  grossly  exaggerated  Lu 
Pan's  mechanical  skill.  Thus  a  story  is  current  that  he  made  a 
wooden  kite  which  was  mounted  by  his  father,  and  the  old  man  flew 
as  far  as  Wu-hui,  a  town  in  the  prefecture  of  Su-chou,  Kiang-su 
Province,  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Wu.  The  people  there  took  the 
landing  flyer  for  a  devil  and  slew  him.  Lu  Pan,  infuriated  at  this 
detestable  crime,  carved  a  wooden  effigy  of  some  evil  spirit,  whose 
hand  pointed  in  the  direction  of  Wu  and  caused  a  drought  there  for 
a  period  of  three  years.  On  consulting  the  oracle,  the  inhabitants  of 
Wu  recognized  that  this  calamity  was  brought  about  by  Lu  Pan, 
and  appeased  his  wrath  with  supplications  and  presents,  whereupon 
he  chopped  off  the  hand  of  the  statue,  and  rain  fell  abundantly  in 
the  kingdom.  According  to  another  legend  of  comparatively  recent 
date,  Lu  Pan  made  a  wooden  kite;  all  it  was  necessary  to  do  was  to 
rap  at  the  door-post  three  times,  and  the  kite  flew  off,  carrying  away 
the  person  who  was  mounted  on  it.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that 
Kung-shu  Tse  and  Lu  Pan  are  two  distinct  individuals  and  that  the 
two  were  merged  into  one  by  subsequent  traditions,  but  this  question 
does  not  concern  us  here;  we  are  interested  in  the  mechanical  contri- 
vance itself,  and  for  this  purpose  the  texts  of  the  early  philosophers 
only  merit  consideration. 

Wang  Ch'ung  (A.  D.  27-97),  philosopher,  critic,  and  sceptic,  who 
poked  fun  at  the  literati,  discredits  Lu  Pan's  invention  in  the  follow- 
ing discourse: — 

"From  wood  he  carved  a  kite  capable  of  flying  for  three  days 
without  descending.  It  is  possible  that  he  made  a  wooden  kite  and 
was  able  to  fly  it;  but  the  report  that  it  did  not  alight  for  three  days 
is  exaggerated.  Carving  it  from  wood,  he  gave  it  the  shape  of  a  bird; 


The  Romance  of  Flying  in  Ancient  China  25 

how,  then,  could  it  fly  without  resting?  If  it  could  soar,  why 
just  for  three  days?  In  case  it  was  equipped  with  a  mechanism  by 
which  it  was  set  in  motion  and  continued  to  fly,  it  might  not  have 
descended.  In  this  case  it  should  be  said  that  it  flew  continually,  not 
for  three  days.  There  is  a  report  that  through  his  own  skill  Lu  Pan 
lost  his  mother.  Being  a  skilled  mechanic,  he  had  constructed  for  her 
a  wooden  carriage  and  horses  with  a  wooden  charioteer.  When  the 
apparatus  was  completed,  he  set  his  mother  in  the  carriage  which 
sped  away  and  never  returned.  Thus  he  lost  his  mother.  Provided  the 
mechanism  of  the  wooden  kite  was  well  arranged,  it  must  have  been 
like  that  of  the  wooden  carriage  and  horses;  in  this  case  it  would  have 
continued  to  fly  without  stopping.  On  the  other  hand,  a  mechanism 
functions  but  a  short  while,  and  for  this  reason  the  kite  could  not 
have  kept  up  its  motion  for  more  than  three  days.  This  also  holds 
good  for  the  wooden  carriage,  which  should  have  come  to  a  stop 
after  three  days  on  the  road,  instead  of  going  on  so  that  his  mother 
was  lost.   Apparently  the  two  stories  are  untrustworthy." 

It  is  obvious  that  as  early  as  the  first  century  of  our  era  real 
knowledge  of  this  contrivance  was  lost. 

Aside  from  the  dove  of  Archytas  to  which  reference  has  been 
made,  Lu  Pan's  wooden  magpie  or  kite  meets  with  another  curious 
parallel  in  the  West.  The  astronomer  Regiomontanus,  who  lived  at 
Nuremberg  in  the  fifteenth  century,  is  said  to  have  constructed  an 
eagle  which,  on  the  emperor's  (Charles  V)  approach  to  the  city,  he 
sent  out  high  in  the  air  a  long  way  to  meet  him,  and  which  accom- 
panied him  to  the  city  gates.  I.  B.  Hart  furnishes  this  comment, 
"Shorn  of  all  the  inevitable  additions  of  credulous  narrators,  the  pro- 
bability is  that  Regiomontanus,  who  was  of  a  mechanical  turn  of 
mind,  fashioned  a  clockwork  contrivance  which,  more  by  luck  possi- 
bly than  by  design ,  acted  as  a  glider  when  released . ' '  Regiomontanus 
is  also  credited  with  having  had  an  automaton  in  perpetual  motion 
in  his  workshop  and  with  having  made  a  fly  which,  taking  its  flight 
from  his  hand,  would  fly  around  the  room,  and  at  last,  as  if  weary, 
would  return  to  his  master's  hand.  Francesco  Lana,  in  his  "Prodromo" 
(1670,  pp.  50-51),  has  given  directions  as  to  how  to  make  birds 
which  fly  through  the  air.  Considering  the  fact  that  such  like  con- 
trivances are  reported  from  different  parts  of  the  world  and  at  widely 
varying  times,  we  cannot  refrain  from  concluding  that  a  grain  of 
truth  must  underlie  these  accounts  and  that  Lu  Pan's  wooden  kite 
also,  even  granted  that  like  other  inventions  it  has  been  magnified,  to 
some  extent  was  an  object  of  reality  and  had  a  foundation  in  fact. 


26  The  Prehistory  op  Aviation 

Perhaps  it  was  a  primitive  form  of  glider,  perhaps  it  was  connected 
with  and  raised  by  a  flying  kite. 


Starting  from  realistic  means  of  flight,  Chinese  efforts  did  not 
continue  in  this  direction.  Strangely  enough,  from  realism  they 
developed  into  mysticism  and  magic.  From  the  second  century  B.C. 
alchemical  lore  coming  from  the  West  began  to  infiltrate  Chinese 
thought;  quest  of  the  elixir  of  life  and  the  desire  to  transmute  J)ase 
metals  into  gold  allied  themselves  with  ancient  native  conceptions  of 
formulas  for  securing  longevity  and  immortality  in  a  better  land. 
The  notion  of  flight  was  a  link  of  paramount  importance  in  this 
chain  of  mystic  dreams  which  held  the  minds  of  the  people  enthralled 
for  many  centuries. 

Liu  An,  commonly  known  as  Huai-nan  Tse  (second  century  be- 
fore our  era)  was  much  given  to  alchemistic  studies  and  to  search  for 
the  elixir  of  life  on  which  he  published  several  treatises.  Tradition 
credits  him  with  the  discovery  of  an  elixir  which  he  finally  drank, 
with  the  effect  that  he  rose  to  heaven  in  broad  daylight.  The  vessel 
which  contained  the  beverage  of  immortality  he  dropped  into  his 
courtyard,  and  when  the  dogs  and  poultry  sipped  the  dregs,  they 
immediately  sailed  up  to  heaven  after  him. 

Li  Shao-kun,  an  adept  of  alchemy  and  the  magic  arts  under  the 
emperor  Wu  of  the  Han  dynasty  (140-87  B.C.),  over  whom  he  gained 
great  influence,  made  an  elixir  of  life  and  pretended  to  be  able  to 
transmute  cinnabar  into  gold.  He  described  his  magic  powers  in  this 
strain,  "I  know  how  to  harden  snow  and  change  it  into  white  silver. 
I  know  how  cinnabar  transforms  its  nature  and  passes  into  yellow 
gold.  I  can  rein  the  flying  dragon  and  visit  the  extremities  of  the 
earth.  I  can  bestride  the  hoary  crane  and  soar  above  the  nine  de- 
grees of  heaven." 

Indeed,  the  riding  conveyance  favorite  with  Taoist  saints  for 
taking  passage  into  the  beyond  is  the  crane,  a  bird  famed  in  Chinese 
lore  and  endowed  with  many  supernatural  attributes.  He  is  said  to 
reach  a  fabulous  age,  and  when  six  hundred  years  old,  to  dispense 
with  solid  food,  but  to  continue  to  drink  water.  Of  the  four  kinds  of 
crane, — the  black,  the  yellow,  the  white,  and  the  blue  ones, — the 
black  one  is  the  longest-lived.  He  is  hence  reputed  as  the  patriarch  of 
the  feathered  tribe,  and  manifests  a  particular  interest  in  human 
affairs.  Men  have  repeatedly  been  transformed  into  the  shape  of  a 
crane,  and  he  transports  to  the  regions  of  eternal  bliss  those  who  have 


The  Romance  of  Flying  in  Ancient  China  27 

attained  the  degree  of  sainthood  in  this  life,  as  he  also  serves  as  a 
vehicle  to  the  goddes  Si  Wang  Mu  (Plate  VI).  This  picture  is  a 
small  section  from  a  large  embroidered  screen  in  twelve  panels  in  the 
Museum's  collection,  depicting  the  celebration  of  the  goddess'  birth- 
day when  the  Eight  Immortals  appear  to  offer  congratulations  and 
rich  gifts.  The  goddess  surrounded  by  attendants  alights  from  her 
celestial  quarters  on  the  back  of  a  flying  crane. 

Wang  Tse-k'iao,  who  was  the  eldest  son  of  king  Ling  of  the  Chou 
dynasty  and  lived  in  the  sixth  century  before  our  era,  studied  the 
black  art  for  thirty  years  under  a  magician  named  Fou-k'iu  Kung. 
One  day  he  sent  a  message  to  his  kin,  saying  that  he  would  appear  to 
them  on  the  seventh  day  of  the  seventh  moon  on  the  summit  of  a 
mountain;  and  indeed,  on  the  appointed  day,  he  was  seen  riding 
through  the  air  on  a  white  crane,  waving  his  farewell  to  the  world 
and  ascending  to  heaven  to  join  the  ranks  of  the  immortals. 

Ting-ling  Wei  (second  century  of  our  era),  a  student  of  the  black 
art,  was  transformed  into  a  crane  a  thousand  years  after  his  death,  that 
he  might  revisit  earth  and  his  old  home,  when  he  bewailed  the 
changes  that  time  had  wrought  upon  men  and  their  hearts. 

Wang  K'iao,  who  lived  in  the  first  century  of  our  era,  used  to 
report  regularly  at  court;  but  as  he  had  no  chariot  or  horses,  ,the 
emperor  Ming  of  the  Han  dynasty  was  curious  to  learn  how  he  man- 
aged to  travel  such  a  long  distance,  and  instructed  the  Grand  Astro- 
loger to  find  out.  The  imperial  messenger  was  amazed  to  discover 
that  Wang  did  the  trick  by  riding  upon  a  pair  of  wild  ducks,  which 
bore  him  swiftly  through  the  air.  Hence  he  lay  in  wait  and  threw  a 
net  over  the  birds;  but  when  he  went  to  seize  them,  he  found  only  a 
pair  of  official  shoes  which  had  been  presented  to  Wang  by  the 
emperor. 

Less  frequently  a  tiger  is  made  the  aerial  courser.  This  was  the 
climax  of  the  life  of  Madame  Ts'ai  Luan,  who  lived  in  the  fourth  and 
fifth  centuries  of  our  era  and  made  a  study  of  the  black  art.  These 
efforts,  however,  did  not  have  any  riches  in  store  for  her;  for  she 
remained  poor  and  eked  out  a  meagre  livelihood  by  making  copies  of 
a  dictionary  of  rhymes,  which  she  sold  to  scholars.  Her  reward  came 
ten  years  later  when  she  and  her  husband  went  up  to  heaven  on  a 
pair  of  white  tigers. 

Some  accomplished  the  ascent  to' heaven  even  without  the  me- 
dium of  a  riding  animal.  Thus  Ma  Tse-jan,  reputed  for  his  wide 
knowledge  of  simples  and  in  great  demand  as  a  physician,  studied 


28  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

the  doctrines  and  practices  of  Taoism,  and  was  ultimately  taken  up  to 
heaven  alive. 

Plate  VII  illustrates  a  Taoist  saint  comfortably  flying  in  the  air 
from  cliff  to  cliff,  simply  driven  by  the  wind,  while  two  wanderers  on 
the  mountain  path  gaze  at  him  in  bewilderment.  This  picture  is  a 
landscape  drawn  in  ink,  probably  of  the  Ming  period. 

"Shoes  which  enable  one  to  ascend  the  clouds"  (teng  yiin  li)  are 
ascribed  by  tradition  to  Sun  Pin;  they  were  made  of  fish-skin  and 
enabled  their  wearer  to  walk  on  water  and  to  tread  one  louds.  "Fly- 
ing cloud  shoes"  (Jei  yun  li)  are  attributed  to  the  famous  poet  Po  Kii-i 
(A.D.  772-846):  when  he  was  engaged  in  preparing  an  elixir  on 
Mount  Lu  in  Kiang-si  Province,  one  of  the  haunted  grottoes  of  the 
Taoists,  he  made  these  shoes  of  fine  black  damask,  cutting  a  cluster 
of  clouds  out  of  plain  raw  silk  which  he  dyed  with  four  choice  aro- 
matics.  When  he  moved  around  in  these  shoes,  he  looked  like  smoky 
mist,  as  though  clouds  were  rising  from  beneath  his  feet  and  as 
though  he  would  before  long  ascend  to  the  celestial  palace.  These 
magic  shoes  are  an  echo  of  the  thousand-league  boots  of  our  folk-lore 
of  which  more  will  be  said  in  the  chapter  on  India. 

In  the  long  history  of  this  struggle  for  the  conquest  of  the  air,  two 
singular  ideas  finally  come  to  the  fore — levitation  by  means  of  star- 
vation and  application  of  remedies  taken  internally.  The  slogan  of 
this  school  was:  Live  on  air  to  conquer  the  air! 

These  Taoist  ideas  may  partially  be  traceable  to  India.  The 
Buddhist  saints  of  the  Tantra  school  also  had  the  notion  of  obtaining 
supernatural  powers  which  would  enable  them  to  transmute  their 
bodies  and  to  assume  any  shape  at  will,  as  well  as  to  traverse  space 
with  the  most  rapid  possible  motion. 

Leading  a  natural  life  in  the  seclusion  of  mountains  in  close  con- 
tact with  nature  was  believed  to  be  conducive  to  obtaining  longevity 
and  immortality.  The  highest  ambition  of  many  Taoist  hermits, 
then,  was  to  reduce  their  weight,  to  lighten  their  bodies,  to  release 
their  souls,  and  thus  to  obtain  the  ability  to  fly  toward  heaven.  Chang 
Tao-ling  (A.D.  34-156),  known  as  the  first  Taoist  pope,  retired  to  the 
mountains  and  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  alchemy  and  to  culti- 
vating the  virtues  of  purity  and  mental  abstraction.  The  white  tiger 
presiding  over  the  west  and  the  green  dragon  ruling  the  quarter  of 
the  east  appeared  in  the  air  above  his  habitation,  and  finally  he 
reached  his  goal  and  found  the  elixir  of  immortality.  He  swallowed 
a  dose  of  it,  and  the  sixty  year  old  man  was  suddenly  transformed 
into  a  vigorous  youth.   Soon  after  when  he  made  a  pilgrimage  to  a 


The  Romance  of  Flying  in  Ancient  China  29 

sacred  mountain  in  the  proximity  of  the  city  of  Ho-nan,  he  met  on 
the  road  a  man  who  disclosed  to  him  the  location  of  a  cave;  it  con- 
cealed, he  intimated,  occult  writings  whose  study  would  enable  him 
to  obtain  the  power  of  flying  skyward.  After  fasting  and  purifying 
himself  he  found  the  books  in  question,  and  by  studying  these  he 
attained  the  gift  of  ubiquity,  and  was  capable  of  assuming  simul- 
taneously various  shapes.  After  years  of  meditation  and  efforts  spent 
on  exorcism  of  demons  he  was  deemed  worthy  of  appearing  before 
Lao-tse,  and  ascended  as  an  immortal  to  the  heavens  with  his  wife 
and  two  favorite  disciples. 

An-k'i  Sheng,  a  legendary  magician  who  lived  on  the  Isles  of  the 
Blest  in  the  Eastern  Ocean  and  possessed  the  power  of  rendering 
himself  visible  or  invisible  at  will,  visited  the  Lo-fou  Mountains  in 
Kwang-tung  Province,  where  he  subsisted  only  on  the  stalks  of 
water-rushes;  by  virtue  of  this  diet  he  finally  became  emancipated 
from  the  dross  of  earth,  and  ascending  the  summit  of  the  White 
Cloud  Mountain,  rose  to  heaven  before  the  eyes  of  his  companion. 
The  recipe  "living  on  air"  was  tried,  for  instance,  by  Chang  Liang, 
who  died  in  187  before  our  era.  He  began  to  eliminate  food  in  the 
hope  of  gaining  levitation  of  the  body  and  finally  immortality,  but 
failed,  because  he  once  yielded  to  the  solicitations  of  the  empress 
and  ate  a  bit  of  rice. 

A  good  example  of  this  sort  of  hunger-strike  apostle  is  presented 
by  Li  Pi  (A.D.  722-789),  who  as  a  youth  was  keenly  devoted  to  the 
study  of  Taoism  and  would  roam  in  the  mountains,  pondering  upon 
the  secret  of  immortality.  He  declined  to  marry,  abstained  from  all 
substantial  food  except  fruit  and  berries,  and  practised  the  art  of 
breathing,  which  is  believed  by  the  Taoists  to  conduce  to  immortality. 
He  finally  became  reduced  to  a  skeleton,  and  received  the  nickname 
"the  Collar-bone  Immortal  of  Ye."  Chang  Cho  also,  a  scholar  of 
the  ninth  century,  trained  himself  to  get  along  without  food.  He  was 
able  to  cut  butterflies  out  of  paper,  which  would  flutter  about  and 
return  to  his  hands.  Lu  Ts'ang-yung,  son  of  an  official,  flunked  in 
the  civil  service  examinations  and  retired  with  his  brother  to  the 
mountains,  where  they  lived  as  hermits  and  studied  the  art  of  getting 
along  without  food  (which  in  our  own  times  many  students  of  art 
and  science  have  involuntarily  imitated). 

The  climax  of  this  movement  was  reached  in  the  preparation  of  a 
nostrum  for  promoting  the  art  of  flying. 

T'ao  Hung-king  (A.D.  452-536),  a  distinguished  physician  and  a 
celebrated  adept  in  the  mysteries  of  Taoism,  compounded  what  is 


30  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

known  as  the  "flying  elixir"  (fei  tan):  it  did  not  contain  any  medi- 
cinal drugs,  but  was  a  mixture  of  gold,  cinnabar,  azurite,  and  sul- 
phur,— ingredients  which  had  been  contributed  by  the  emperor. 
This  compound  is  said  to  have  had  the  color  of  hoarfrost  and  snow 
and  to  have  been  bitter  of  taste.  When  swallowed,  it  was  believed 
to  produce  levitation  of  the  body.  The  emperor  tasted  and  tested  it, 
found  it  beneficial,  and  conferred  honors  on  the  manufacturer.  I  think 
this  is  the  only  example  in  the  history  of  the  world  in  the  way  of  teach- 
ing to  fly  by  means  of  a  medicine  taken  internally;  but  from  the  view- 
point of  Chinese  alchemical  and  religious  lore  it  is  quite  intelligible 
how  this  notion  could  spring  into  existence. 

In  speaking  of  the  Yogins  of  India,  Marco  Polo  writes,  "They 
are  extremely  long-lived,  every  man  of  them  living  to  a  hundred  and 
fifty  or  two  hundred  years.  They  eat  very  little,  but  what  they  do 
eat  is  good;  rice  and  milk  chiefly.  And  these  people  make  use  of  a 
very  strange  beverage;  for  they  make  a  potion  of  sulphur  and  quick- 
silver mixed  together,  and  this  they  drink  twice  every  month.  This, 
they  say,  gives  them  long  life;  and  it  is  a  potion  they  are  used  to  take 
from  their  childhood."  The  alchemists  of  both  Asia  and  Europe  re- 
garded sulphur  and  mercury,  combined  under  different  conditions 
and  various  proportions,  as  the  origin  of  all  metals.  Mercury  was 
called  the  mother  of  metals;  sulphur,  the  father. 

The  desire  to  obtain  eternal  youth  focused  on  the  elixir  of  immor- 
tality, the  fountain  of  youth,  or  the  rejuvenescent  water  of  life,  has 
haunted  mankind  through  all  ages.  It  was  this  theme,  that  oc- 
cupied Nathaniel  Hawthorne's  mind  throughout  his  life  and  that 
culminated  in  his  unfinished  romance  which  rested  upon  his  coffin. 


KITES  AS  PRECURSORS  OF  AEROPLANES 

A  flying-kite  may  be  defined  as  an  aeroplane  which  cannot  be 
manned,  and  an  aeroplane  may  be  defined  as  a  kite  which  can  be 
manned.  This  definition  implies  the  interrelation  of  the  two  mechani- 
cal devices.  How  this  development  was  brought  about  will  be 
demonstrated  on  the  following  pages.  Kites  were  invented  and  first 
put  to  a  practical  test  in  ancient  China;  hence  the  Chinese  must  be 
credited  with  a  substantial  contribution  to  the  advance  of  aero- 
nautics. In  January,  1894,  O.  Chanute  wrote  in  Chicago,  "It  would 
not  at  all  be  surprising  to  find,  should  a  stable  aeroplane  be  hereafter 
produced,  that  it  has  its  prototype  in  a  Chinese  kite."  And  history 
proves  him  right. 

It  must  not  be  imagined  that  the  Chinese  kite  is  anything  like  the 
flimsy,  cross-shaped  structure  of  wood  covered  with  paper  of  a 
diamond-shaped  surface  that  we  used  to  fly  in  our  boyhood  days. 
This  toy  is  a  poor  degenerate  orphan  put  to  blush  in  comparison  with 
the  ingenious  creations  of  the  Chinese,  which  are  wonders  of  both 
technique  and  art.  The  ordinary  Chinese  kites  are  made  of  a  light, 
elastic  framework  of  bamboo  over  which  is  spread  a  sheet  of  strong 
paper  painted  in  brilliant  hues  with  human  or  animal  figures.  They 
generously  display  that  love  of  art  and  that  whole  gamut  of  decora- 
tive design  which  runs  through  the  life  of  the  Chinese  nation.  Favo- 
rite subjects  are  mythological  figures  and  monsters,  dragons,  actors, 
and  heroes  of  popular  plays,  beautiful  women,  animals  of  all  de- 
scriptions, birds  of  prey,  serpents,  frogs  and  fishes,  flies  and  butter- 
flies as  well  as  centipedes,  also  flower-baskets  and  boats.  In  the  bird- 
kites  the  thin  paper  attached  to  the  wings  is  moved  by  the  wind  and 
simulates  the  flapping  of  the  wings.  It  goes  without  saying  that,  as 
indicated  by  the  common  term  "paper  kite"  (chi  yilan)  for  the  device, 
kites  are  a  favorite  pattern  frequently  in  evidence.  Not  only  the 
great  variety  of  quaint  shapes  and  designs  is  amazing,  but  also  the 
correct  calculation  or  premeditated  evaluation  of  the  distance  effect; 
viewed  in  close  proximity  the  kite  pictures  may  seem  dispropor- 
tionately large  or  exaggerated  or  even  distorted,  while  naturally  they 
are  designed  for  a  distant  vista  and  in  fact,  when  towering  high  in 
the  air,  appear  most  beautiful  and  so  life-like  that  they  may  be  taken 
for  real  birds.  Again,  the  kite  in  the  air  is  hardly  ever  stationary,  but 
constantly  on  the  move,  hovering  and  soaring,  and  as  it  moves  on, 
appears  more  and  more  as  a  legitimate  denizen  of  the  atmosphere. 

31 


32  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

And  then  the  stupendous  skill  of  the  hands  which  manipulate  the 
flying  monsters!  A  long  coil  of  tough  cord  is  wound  over  a  reel,  and 
it  is  the  reel,  not  the  cord,  which  is  held  in  the  hand  and  is  continually 
turned  as  the  paper  plane  rises. 

The  most  complicated  and  ingenious  of  these  flying-machines  is 
the  centipede  kite.  One  which  I  obtained  at  Peking  in  1901  for  the 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History  in  New  York  (together  with  a 
collection  of  some  seventy  kites,  all  of  different  types)  measures  forty 
feet  in  length,  and  is  made  to  fold  up  accordion-like.  The  fierce  head 
of  the  creature  with  huge  eyes  and  gaping  jaws  is  surmounted  by 
long,  protuding  horns.  The  body  consists  of  a  series  of  some  twenty- 
five  disks,  about  a  foot  in  diameter,  formed  of  a  bamboo  frame 
covered  with  paper.  These  are  painted  with  concentric  zones  in 
black,  yellow,  and  white.  The  disks  are  connected  with  one  another 
by  two  cords  which  keep  them  equidistant,  and  are  fastened  to  a 
transverse  bamboo  rod  from  which  sticks  run  crosswise  to  the  centre 
of  the  disks.  The  latter  revolve  when  the  kite  is  being  flown.  The 
rear  disk  is  provided  with  streamers  that  form  the  tail.  It  requires 
great  skill  to  raise  this  kite,  and  cords  are  attached  to  three  or  more 
points  of  the  body  to  keep  it  under  control.  In  a  strong  wind  several 
men  are  required  to  hold  the  reel.  Seen  in  the  air  with  its  gigantic 
proportions,  its  huge  glaring  eyes  swiftly  twirling  in  their  sockets, 
its  weird,  wriggling,  serpentine  motions,  it  conveys  the  impression 
of  some  fossil  monster  of  bygone  ages  having  suddenly  come  back  to 
life.  A  centipede  kite  of  smaller  dimensions  is  also  made  in  Hawaii. 

0.  Chanute  justly  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  device 
resembles  in  arrangement  the  multiple  disk  kites  suggested  and  de- 
signed for  life-saving  in  shipwrecks  by  E.  J.  Cordner,  an  Irish  Catholic 
priest,  in  1859. 

Mechanically  kites  are  constructed  on  the  principle  underlying 
the  behavior  of  a  soaring  bird  which  performs  its  movements  with 
peculiarly  curved  and  warped  surfaces. 

The  ninth  day  of  the  ninth  month  in  the  autumn  is  devoted  to 
the  festival  called  Ch'ung-yang  which  is  celebrated  by  ascending 
hills.  Friends  and  acquaintances  join  for  a  picnic  on  some  eminence 
in  the  neighborhood  of  their  town  and  set  kites  adrift,  as  the  autum- 
nal breezes  favor  the  sport.  This  also  is  the  great  day  for  holding  kite 
contests.  Any  kite,  no  matter  to  whom  it  belongs,  may  be  cut  down 
by  another.  For  this  purpose  the  cord  near  the  kite  is  stiffened  with 
crushed  glass  or  porcelain  smeared  on  with  fish-glue.  The  kite-flyer 
manoeuvres  to  get  his  kite  to  windward  of  that  of  his  rival,  allows 


Kites  as  Precursors  of  Aeroplanes  33 

his  cord  to  drift  against  that  of  his  opponent  and  by  a  sudden  jerk 
to  cut  it  through,  so  that  the  hostile  kite  is  brought  down. 

A  musical  kite  was  first  invented  by  Li  Ye  of  the  tenth  century  of 
our  era,  an  expert  kite-maker,  who  was  purveyor  of  kites  for  his 
imperial  majesty.  He  made  an  ordinary  paper  kite  with  a  string 
attached  to  it  and  fastened  to  the  kite's  head  a  bamboo  flute.  He 
flew  this  kite  in  such  a  manner  that  when  the  wind  struck  the  holes 
of  the  flute  and  produced  sounds  like  those  of  a  harpsichord  (cheng), 
which  originally  had  twelve,  at  present,  however,  has  thirteen,  brass 
strings.  Hence  a  new  term  for  kites  came  into  vogue — "wind  harpsi- 
chord" (Jung  cheng),  which  is  now  used  indiscriminately  for  any 
kite. 

Such  flutes  are  still  occasionally  used  in  connection  with  kites. 
They  consist  of  a  short  bamboo  tube  closed  at  the  ends  and  provided 
with  three  apertures, — one  in  the  centre  and  one  at  either  extremity. 
When  the  kite  is  flying,  the  air,  in  rushing  into  the  holes  of  the  in- 
strument, produces  a  somewhat  intense  and  plaintive  sound,  which 
can  be  heard  at  a  great  distance.  Sometimes  three  or  four  of  these 
bamboo  tubes  are  placed  one  above  another  over  the  kite,  and  in  this 
case  a  very  pronounced  deep  sound  is  produced.  Imagine  that  hun- 
dreds of  such  kites  may  be  released  at  a  time  and  are  hovering  in  the 
air,  and  there  is  a  veritable  aerial  orchestra  at  play.  This  music  has  a 
beneficial  effect,  for  it  is  thought  to  scour  evil  spirits  from  the  atmo- 
sphere. To  strengthen  this  benevolent  influence,  a  captive  kite, 
during  the  prevalence  of  winds,  is  often  affixed  to  the  roof  of  a  house 
when  during  the  whole  night  it  will  emit  plaintive  murmurs.  Still 
more  frequently,  at  least  in  Peking  in  the  age  of  the  Manchu  dynasty, 
there  was  attached  to  the  top  of  a  kite  a  musical  bow  of  light  willow- 
wood  or  bamboo  strung  with  a  silken  cord.  When  struck  by  the  wind, 
the  instrument  would  produce  humming  sounds  like  an  Aeolian  harp. 
Thus  the  Chinese  were  the  first  who  knew  how  to  produce  "music  on 
the  air."  At  night  paper  lanterns  with  a  lighted  candle  inside  were 
sometimes  suspended  from  small  kites  in  the  shape  of  butterflies,  and 
these  were  again  attached  to  the  main  or  pilot  kite  of  much  larger 
dimensions.  Ear  and  eye  are  thus  treated  to  a  feast,  but  this  is  not 
all.  To  make  the  performance  still  more  spectacular,  messengers  con- 
sisting of  bamboo  frames  with  fire-crackers  attached  are  sent  up  the 
strings  from  which  the  kite  is  governed,  and  the  crackers  are  timed  to 
explode  on  reaching  the  top. 

Archdeacon  J.  H.  Gray,  in  his  excellent  book  "China"  (1878), 
says,  "In  the  centre  of  Chinese  kites,  four  or  five  metallic  strings  are 


34  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

fixed  on  the  principle  of  the  Aeolian  harp.  When  they  are  flying, 
'slow-lisping  notes  as  of  the  Aeolian  lyre'  are  distinctly  heard." 

He  then'  records  from  oral  tradition  the  following  story  in  ex- 
planation of  this  musical  apparatus:  "During  the  reign  of  the  emperor 
Liu  Pang,  the  founder  of  the  Han  dynasty,  a  general  who  was  much 
attached  to  the  dynasty  which  had  been  ooliged  to  give  way  before 
the  more  powerful  house  of  Han,  resolved  to  make  a  last  vigorous 
effort  to  drive  Liu  Pang  from  the  throne  he  had  recently  usurped.  A 
battle,  however,  resulted  in  the  army  of  the  general  being  hemmed  in 
and  threatened  with  annihilation.  At  his  wit's  end  to  devise  a  method 
of  escape,  he  at  last  conceived  the  ingenious  idea  of  frightening  the 
enemy  by  flying  kites,  fitted  with  Aeolian  strings,  over  their  camp  in 
the  dead  of  night.  The  wind  was  favorable,  and  when  all  was  wrapt 
in  darkness  and  silence,  the  forces  of  Liu  Pang  heard  sounds  in  the  air 
resembling  Fu  Han!  Beware  of  Han!  It  was  their  guardian  angels, 
they  declared,  who  were  warning  them  of  impending  danger,  and 
they  precipitately  fled,  hotly  pursued  by  the  general  and  his  army." 

Kites  were  originally  used  in  China  for  military  signalling  and  for 
such  purposes  only,  but  in  the  beginning  they  were  not  connected 
with  any  religious  practices,  as  is  erroneously  stated  by  several 
authors.  Thus  Hodgson  (History  of  Aeronautics,  p.  368)  writes,  "It 
cannot  be  doubted  that  the  kite,  though  of  uncertain,  is  nevertheless 
of  very  ancient  origin. ..  Though  in  wide-spread  use  as  a  pastime 
among  the  Chinese,  Japanese,  Maoris,  and  other  peoples,  its  origin  is 
usually  ascribed  to  religion."  Originally  it  was  not  a  toy  either;  this 
is  a  later  development  which  set  in  from  the  time  of  the  Sung  dynasty. 

There  is  no  Chinese  document  dealing  with  kites  that  contains  a 
word  about  religious  observances  in  connection  with  them.  The  idea 
that  a  kite  functions  as  a  scapegoat  charming  away  the  owner's  sins 
and  misfortunes  is  a  recent  development  to  be  found  locally  and  spora- 
dically, but  it  is  not  general;  it  is  more  developed  in  Korea  than  in 
China,  but  at  any  rate  it  bears  no  relation  to  the  origin  of  kites. 

The  beginning  of  kites  in  China  cannot  be  clearly  traced.  It  is  a 
curious  fact  that  just  in  those  things  which  are  characteristically  Chi- 
nese their  records  fail  us — partially  perhaps  because  these  things  seem 
trivial,  partially  because  Chinese  scholars  are  of  the  bookish  type 
and  poor  observers  of  real  life.  A  paltry  object  like  a  kite  was  some- 
what below  their  dignity;  nevertheless  kites  have  been  made  the 
subject  of  a  score  of  poetical  compositions.  In  times  of  early  anti- 
quity kites  did  not  exist:  they  are  not  mentioned,  for  instance,  as  it 
might  be  expected,  in  the  treatise  on  the  Art  of  War  which  Sun  Wu 


Kites  as  Precursors  of  Aeroplanes  35 

wrote  in  the  sixth  century  before  our  era  and  of  which  we  have  an 
excellent  English  translation  by  Lionel  Giles. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  in  the  preceding  chapter  that  Kung-shu's 
wooden  bird  was  not  a  flying-kite.  The  earliest  notion  of  this  device 
looms  up  in  the  life  of  Han  Sin,  who  died  in  196  before  our  era.  He  is 
known  as  one  of  the  Three  Heroes  who  assisted  Liu  Pang  in  ascending 
the  throne  as  first  emperor  of  the  Han  dynasty.  He  was  desirous  of 
digging  a  tunnel  into  the  Wei-yang  Palace,  and  is  said  to  have  flown  a 
paper  kite  for  the  purpose  of  measuring  the  distance  to  the  palace. 
Some  explain  that  he  did  so  by  measuring  the  length  of  the  cord 
fastened  to  the  kite;  others  with  a  bolder  grip  of  imagination  pretend 
that  he  himself  ascended  on  the  kite  to  gain  a  free  outlook  on  the 
palace.  It  is  more  probable  that  Han  Sin  introduced  kites  into  war- 
fare, using  them  in  trigonometrical  calculations  of  the  distance  from 
the  hostile  army.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  story  is  not  well  authenti- 
cated; it  is  not  contained  in  contemporaneous  records,  but  only  in 
comparatively  late  sources.  If  for  no  other  reason,  it  is  suspicious 
that  Han  Sin's  kite  is  said  to  have  been  made  of  paper,  while  paper 
was  invented  only  three  hundred  years  later. 

Chinese  authors  are  wont  to  speak  of  "paper  kites,"  but  rag-paper 
was  invented  by  Ts'ai  Lun  only  in  A.D.  105.  Ever  since  paper  has 
come  into  use,  kites  have  been  made  of  this  material,  and  no  other  is 
employed  for  them.  Nevertheless  it  is  not  reasonable  to  argue  that 
prior  to  the  invention  of  rag-paper  kites  could  not  have  been  made; 
the  framework  might  have  been  covered  with  silk,  hemp,  or  some 
other  light  fabric  as  well, — only  Chinese  records  are  reticent  as  to 
this  point.  The  Polynesians  enlist  bark-cloth  (tapa)  for  their  kites, 
and  as  will  be  seen  below,  the  first  kite  made  in  England  was  of 
linen,  while  Benjamin  Franklin's  famous  kite  was  of  silk. 

In  A.D.  549  Hou  King  (502-552)  besieged  the  city  of  T'ai  in 
which  Kien-wen,  subsequently  the  emperor  Wu  of  the  Liang  dynasty, 
was  bottled  up.  Unable  to  communicate  with  the  outside  world, 
Kien-wen  had  a  paper  kite  made  with  a  message  attached  to  it  and 
gent  it  up  into  the  air  that  his  friends  might  be  advised  of  his  perilous 
plight.  One  of  Hou  King's  officers,  Wang  Wei  by  name,  saw  the  kite 
rise  and  ordered  his  best  archers  to  take  a  shot  at  it  (first  example  of 
anti-aircraft  practice) .  The  kite  dropped,  but,  as  tradition  has  it,  was 
transformed  into  a  bird  that  escaped  into  the  clouds,  no  one  knowing 
where  it  went — which  probably  means  that  the  kite,  after  all,  had 
not  been  hit.  This  story  is  on  record  in  the  Tu  i  chi  written  by  Li  Yu 
of  the  T'ang  dynasty.  In  A.D.  781  when  Chang  P'ei,  a  loyal  general, 


36  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

defended  the  city  Lin-ming  against  T'ien  Yiie  who  had  revolted 
against  the  reigning  house  of  T'ang,  Chang  released  a  kite  to  inform 
Ma  Sui  of  the  predicament  of  the  garrison  which  was  exposed  to 
starvation.  Again,  in  this  case,  the  kite  was  espied  by  the  hostile 
camp,  and  T'ien  commanded  his  archers  to. bring  it  down,  but  in 
this  attempt  they  failed.  The  garrison  held  out  until  Ma  Sui  came 
to  its  relief  when  a  crushing  defeat  was  inflicted  on  the  besiegers. 

Many  European  authors  who  are  only  too  prone  to  accentuate 
the  topsy-turvy-dom  of  the  Chinese  assert  wrongly  that  kite-flying 
is  exclusively  pursued  in  China  by  adults,  not  by  boys.  It  is  certainly 
true  that  the  men  are  passionate  and  expert  kite-flyers,  and  it  is 
equally  true  that  many  kites,  owing  to  their  enormous  size  and 
weight,  can  be  manipulated  by  grown-ups  only.  But  how  should  the 
man  acquire  his  skill  had  he  not  gained  his  practice  from  early  boy- 
hood days?  Boys  assuredly  play  with  kites,  and  have  done  so  from 
the  days  of  the  Sung  dynasty  (the  end  of  the  tenth  century).  From 
that  period  onward  there  are  many  records  and  pictures  testifying 
to  the  kite-flying  of  youngsters,  and  they  are  even  encouraged  to 
indulge  in  this  wholesome  pastime  for  the  reason  that  "it  makes  them 
throw  their  heads  back  and  open  their  mouths,  thus  getting  rid  of 
internal  heat."  Plate  VIII  illustrates  an  outdoor  scene:  boys  sporting 
with  kites  from  a  Sung  painting  depicting  the  games  and  entertain- 
ments of  a  hundred  boys,  by  Su  Han-ch'en,  a  renowned  artist  of  the 
twelfth  century. 

From  China  kites  were  diffused  to  all  other  nations  of  eastern 
Asia  who  experienced  the  influence  of  Chinese  civilization — Korea, 
Japan,  Annam,  Camboja,  Siam,  Malaysia,  inclusive  of  the  Philip- 
pines and  Borneo.  As  in  China,  kite-flying  has  developed  into  a 
national  pastime  in  Korea  and  Japan  which  received  their  culture 
from  the  mother-country. 

In  some  parts  of  Indonesia,  Micronesia,  and  Melanesia  kites  are 
turned  to  a  practical  purpose  for  catching  fish.  A  fishing-line  to  the 
end  of  which  is  fastened  a  baited  hook  or  noose  is  attached  to  a  kite 
which  is  flown  from  the  end  of  a  canoe  over  the  water;  the  bait  is 
made  to  play  over  the  surface  of  the  sea  by  the  movements  of  the 
kite  in  the  wind.  When  the  fish  bites,  the  kite  goes  down.  In  Poly- 
nesia kite-flying  is  pursued  for  amusement  only,  chiefly  in  New 
Zealand,  the  Cook  group,  Tahiti,  Hervey  Islands,  the  Marquesas, 
Tuamotu,  Easter  Island,  and  Hawaii;  kites  are  unknown  in  Samoa 
and  Tonga. 


Kites  as  Precursors  of  Aeroplanes  37 

Kites  were  introduced  into  India  from  China  either  through  the 
Malays  or  Chinese  immigrants  or  both.  Kite-flying  is  a  popular 
amusement  in  India  during  the  spring.  Matches  are  often  made  for 
considerable  stakes.  As  in  China,  the  strings  are  coated  with  crushed 
glass  smeared  on  with  glue,  and  each  player  seeks  to  manoeuvre  his 
kite  so  as  to  cut  his  rival's  string.  Respectable  elderly  gentlemen 
also  take  keen  interest  in  the  game. 

In  Siam,  kite-flying  was  a  state  ceremony  as  well  as  a  public 
festivity.  Large  paper  kites  were  sent  up  into  the  air  with  the  object 
of  promoting  the  seasonal  wind  by  the  fluttering  noise  made  by  them. 
The  festival  was  obviously  connected  with  agriculture  and  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  north-east  monsoon. 

The  ancients  were  not  acquainted  with  the  flying-kite.  Archytas' 
wooden  dove,  as  pointed  out  on  p.  64,  is  not  a  kite.  There  is  no  refer- 
ence to  a  kite  in  the  writings  of  any  Greek  or  Roman  author.  The 
fact  remains  that  kites  were  introduced  into  Europe  from  the  East 
not  earlier  than  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  Chinese  were 
the  inventors  of  it,  and  all  data  at  our  disposal  go  to  prove  that  the 
kite  spread  from  the  Far  East  westward  to  the  Near  East  and  finally 
to  Europe,  and  that  it  makes  its  debut  in  Europe  as  a  Chinese  con- 
trivance, not  as  a  heritage  of  classical  antiquity. 

Musailima,  the  false  prophet,  a  contemporary  of  Mohammed,  is 
said  to  have  employed  at  night  paper  kites  with  musical  bows  in 
order  to  convey  the  impression  to  his  adherents  that  he  was  commu- 
nicating with  angels.  Al-Jahiz,  who  died  in  A.  D.  869,  in  his  Book 
of  Animals  (Kitab  al-hayawan),  speaks  of  "flags  of  the  boys  which 
were  made  of  Chinese  carton  and  paper;  to  these  tails  and  wings 
were  attached,  little  bells  were  tied  to  their  fronts,  and  on  breezy 
days  they  were  released  into  the  air  from  long  and  firm  threads." 

Kite-flying  is  well  known  to  the  Turks  as  a  sport  both  for  children 
and  adults.  The  kite  is  called  in  Osmanli  kartal  ("eagle"),  in  Jagatai 
and  Cumanian  sar  ("sparrow-hawk"). 

In  European  literature  kites  are  first  described  by  the  Italian 
Giovanni  Batista  in  his  book  on  natural  magic  (Magia  naturalis, 
1589)  and  by  J.  J.  Wecker  (De  secretis,  1592).  The  Jesuit  Athanasius 
Kircher  (Ars  magna  lucis,  1646)  was  well  acquainted  with  kites.  As 
is  well  known,  he  also  wrote  a  book  on  China  which  is  based  on  infor- 
mation received  from  the  members  of  his  order  working  in  China. 

Francesco  Lana  (1670,  p.  50)  informs  us  that  in  his  time  kites 
were  manipulated  by  the  children  of  Italy.  He  calls  them  drago 
("dragon"),  while  the  Italians  now  designate  them  aquilone  ("north 


38  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

wind"),  cometa  ("comet"),  or  cervo-volante  ("flying-stag")  in  accord- 
ance with  French  cerf-volant.  German  drache  is  doubtless  based  on  the 
Italian  appellation,  and  the  Russians  speak  of  a  serpent  (zmdi  or 
zmdika).  The  Spaniards  style  a  kite  pajaro  ("bird,  sparrow")  or 
papagayo  ("parrot").  Curiously  enough,  the  correct  Chinese  term 
"kite"  (yttari)  is  preserved  in  our  English  word,  and  this  seems  to 
hint  at  the  fact  that  paper  kites  were  directly  imported  from  China 
into  England  with  the  correct  label  attached. 

J.  Strutt,  in  his  classical  book  "The  Sports  and  Pastimes  of  the 
People  of  England,"  informs  us  that  the  kite  probably  received  its 
name  from  having  originally  been  made  in  the  shape  of  the  bird  called 
a  kite  and  that  in  a  short  French  and  English  Dictionary  published 
by  Miege  in  1690  the  word  cerf-volant  is  said  to  denote  a  paper 
kite, — the  first  registration  of  the  word  he  found.  "I  have  been  told," 
he  winds  up,  "that  in  China  the  flying  of  paper  kites  is  a  very  ancient 
pastime,  and  practised  much  more  generally  by  the  children  there 
than  it  is  in  England.  From  that  country  perhaps  it  was  brought  to 
us,  but  the  time  of  its  introduction  is  unknown  to  me;  however,  I  do 
not  find  any  reason  to  conclude  that  it  existed  here  much  more  than 
a  century  back"  (Strutt  wrote  in  1801).  Certainly  kites  were  used 
in  England  a  considerable  time  prior  to  1690. 

In  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  kites  were  commonly 
employed  in  England  for  the  purpose  of  letting  off  fireworks.  John 
Bate,  in  his  "Mysteries  of  Nature  and  Art"  (1634),  describes  the 
making  of  a  kite  to  this  end,  though  he  avoids  the  word  itself.  "You 
must  take  a  piece  of  linnen  cloth  of  a  yard  or  more  in  length,"  he 
writes,  "it  must  be  cut  after  the  form  of  a  pane  of  glass;  fasten  two 
light  sticks  cross  the  same,  to  make  it  stand  at  breadth;  then  smear  it 
over  with  linseed  oil  and  liquid  varnish  tempered  together,  or  else  wet 
it  with  oil  of  Peter;  and  unto  the  longest  corner  fasten  a  match  pre- 
pared with  saltpeter  water  upon  which  you  may  fasten  divers 
crackers,  or  saucissons;  betwixt  every  of  which  bind  a  knot  of  paper- 
shavings,  which  will  make  it  flie  the  better;  then  tie  a  small  rope  of 
length  sufficient  to  raise  it  unto  what  height  you  shall  desire,  and  to 
guite  it  withall ;  then  fire  the  match,  and  raise  it  against  the  wind  in  an 
open  field,  and  as  the  match  burneth,  it  will  fire  the  crackers  and 
saucissons,  which  will  give  divers  blows  in  the  ayer."  Bate's  kite  is 
reproduced  in  Plate  IX.  It  has  the  shape  of  a  lozenge,  and  is 
equipped  with  a  tail  to  afford  stability.  This  type  of  kite  was  com- 
monly used  in  England  down  to  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 


Kites  as  Precursors  of  Aeroplanes  39 

S.  Butler  ( Hudibras,  1664)  alludes  to  the  kite  in  scoffing  at  the 
prophecies  based  on  the  appearance  of  comets: — 

It  happen'd  as  a  boy,  one  night, 

Did  fly  his  tarcel  of  a  kite; 

His  train  was  six  yards  long,  milk-white, 

At  th'  end  of  which,  there  hung  a  light, 

Inclosed  in  lanthorn  made  of  paper. . . 

A  tarcel  is  a  young  hawk.  The  Oxford  English  Dictionary  contains 
an  interesting  quotation  from  Marvell  (1672) :  He  may  make  a  great 
paper-kite  of  his  own  letter  of  850  pages. 

In  Europe,  finally,  kites  were  employed  for  scientific  purposes,  for 
the  first  time,  it  is  said,  by  Alexander  Wilson,  professor  of  astronomy 
at  Glasgow  University,  who  claimed  in  1778  that  he  used  kites  at- 
tached to  wire  for  electrical  experiments  long  before  Franklin  in  1749 
and  that  with  four  or  five  paper  kites  strung  one  above  another  he 
raised  thermometers  to  an  altitude  of  three  thousand  feet,  in  order  to 
determine  the  temperature  in  the  clouds. 

In  1752  Benjamin  Franklin  made  his  experiment  of  collecting 
atmospheric  electricity  through  the  medium  of  a  kite  covered  with 
silk  and  fitted  at  the  top  with  a  metal  point.  This  experiment  de- 
monstrated the  identity  of  lightning  with  electricity.  Franklin's  kite 
consisted  of  a  framework  in  the  shape  of  a  cross  made  of  two  light 
strips  of  cedar.  Over  this  frame  was  stretched  a  silk  handkerchief 
tied  to  the  four  ends.  From  the  top  of  the  upright  stick  of  the  cross 
extended  a  sharp-pointed  wire  the  length  of  a  foot.  A  silk  ribbon  was 
tied  to  the  end  of  the  string  which  held  the  kite,  the  end  next  the 
hand,  and  a  key  suspended  at  the  junction  of  the  twine  and  silk. 
The  kite  was  raised  by  Franklin  during  a  thunderstorm  in  June,  1752, 
and  almost  immediately  he  experienced  a  spark  on  applying  his 
knuckles  to  the  key.  When  the  cord  was  moistened  by  a  passing 
shower,  the  electricity  grew  abundant.  A  Leyden  jar  was  charged  at 
the  key,  and  by  the  spark  thus  obtained  spirits  were  ignited,  and 
other  experiments  performed. 

Franklin's  memorable  experiments  established  definitely  the  ser- 
vice of  the  kite  for  scientific  purposes.  It  was  adapted  especially  to 
meteorological  work,  self-registering  thermometers  being  sent  up  with 
it.  Thus  it  is  an  efficient  means  of  obtaining  observations  in  the  free 
air  at  moderate  elevations.  For  all  greater  heights  a  balloon  is  used; 
the  kite,  however,  can  be  used  in  stormy  weather  when  the  balloon 
is  not  serviceable;  but  the  special  advantage  of  the  kite  lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  self-recording  apparatus  is  thoroughly  ventilated  by  the 


40  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

wind,  and  therefore  gives  the  temperature  and  moisture  of  the  free 
air  with  the  least  possible  error  introduced  by  solar  heat  or  instru- 
mental radiation. 


Both  in  China  and  Japan  there  are  stories  current  about  men  rid- 
ing on  kites  through  the  air.  There  is  a  tradition  alive  in  Japan  that 
Yui-no  Shosetsu,  who  tried  to  overthrow  the  Tokugawa  government 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  made  a  large  kite  on  which  he  ascended 
in  order  to  spy  on  the  Shogun's  palace  of  Yedo.  The  Shogun  and  his 
court  were  taken  aback,  and  the  construction  of  large  kites  was  forth- 
with forbidden  under  penalty  of  death.  Shosetsu  was  subsequently 
seized  and  compelled  to  commit  harakiri.  A  famous  brigand  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  Ishikawa  Goyemon,  is  said  to  have  attempted 
to  steal  the  gold  from  the  huge  golden  fish  or  dolphin  on  the  tower  of 
the  Castle  of  Nagoya  by  mounting  on  a  kite.  He  succeeded  in  ab- 
stracting three  golden  fins.  Since  that  hime  large  kites  have  been 
prohibited  in  Owari.  Tametomo,  of  the  Minamoto  family,  a  hero  of 
the  twelfth  century,  who  lived  in  exile  on  Oshima  Island,  is  said  to 
have  sent  his  young  son  from  there  to  Kamakura  by  means  of  an 
enormous  kite.  There  are  other  stories  of  valiant  cavaliers  who  used 
kites  as  airplanes  by  flying  on  them  over  the  enemy's  camp  for 
purposes  of  reconnaissance. 

On  September  24,  1927,  the  Associated  Press  reported  by  cable 
from  Constanza,  Rumania,  that  while  Robert  M.  Patterson,  Ameri- 
can Charge"  d'affaires  in  Rumania,  was  motoring  along  the  beach 
on  the  Black  Sea,  he  heard  cries  for  help  from  a  small  naked  boy 
flying  a  huge  kite  which  threatened  to  fly  away  with  him  or  to  pull 
him  into  the  sea.  The  frightened  boy  turned  out  to  be  five  year  old 
King  Michael,  who,  the  dispatch  said,  despite  his  elevation  to  the 
throne,  cares  more  about  kites  than  kingdoms.  Mr.  Patterson,  who 
knew  Michael  from  babyhood,  stopped  his  motor  and  ran  to  his 
rescue.  Taking  the  thick  cord  from  the  boy's  blistered  hands,  he 
pulled  in  the  kite  which  was  twice  the  size  of  the  young  king.  It 
required  all  his  strength.  "Don't  tell  my  mother,"  whispered  the 
anxious  monarch,  "she  will  kill  me,  she  doesn't  know  I'm  out."  Mr. 
Patterson  placed  him  in  his  car,  and  driving  to  Princess  Helene's 
residence,  deposited  the  little  king  safely  in  the  hands  of  his  English 
nurse. 

Now  if  this  or  a  similar  story  were  found  in  a  Chinese  record,  all 
the  gray-haired  sinologues  would  shake  their  wise  heads  and  de- 


Kites  as  Precursors  of  Aeroplanes  41 

nounce  it  as  an  anecdote  without  a  foundation  of  reality;  but  such 
things  will  happen,  and  even  more  than  that. 

Athanasius  Kircher  was  well  posted  on  the  subject  of  kites,  and 
in  his  work  "Ars  magna  lucis"  (Rome,  1646,  p.  826)  mentions  the 
fact  that  in  his  time  kites  were  made  of  such  dimensions  that  they 
were  capable  of  lifting  a  man. 

The  fact  that  it  is  not  impossible  to  lift  a  person  into  the  air  by 
means  of  two  or  several  powerful  kites  combined  may  be  inferred 
from  experiments  made  in  England  and  America  during  the  nine- 
teenth century.  About  the  year  1826  the  principle  of  the  kite  was 
turned  to  a  practical  purpose  by  George  Pocock,  a  schoolmaster  of 
Bristol.  Interested  in  kite-flying  from  the  days  of  his  boyhood, 
Pocock  found  through  various  experiments  that  by  attaching  several 
kites,  one  beneath  another,  they  could  be  elevated  above  the  clouds. 
Then  he  attached  to  the  cord  of  the  kite  a  board  which  was  dragged 
along  rapidly  like  a  sledge,  and  next  a  car  with  a  full  load  of  passen- 
gers was  drawn  easily  over  the  turf.  The  first  person  who  soared  aloft 
in  the  air  by  this  invention  was  a  lady,  who,  seated  in  an  arm-chair, 
was  raised  by  the  kite  to  a  height  of  a  hundred  yards.  Several  years 
later  he  developed  this  "aeropleustic  art"  (a  term  invented  and  used 
by  him  alone)  by  constructing  a  four-wheeled  carriage  which  he  term- 
ed "char-volant"  (flying  car).  It  was  set  in  motion  by  two  or  more 
large  kites  made  to  fold  up  and  controlled  as  to  angle  and  obliquity 
by  four  lines.  He  demonstrated  that  two  large  kites  with  a  surface 
of  a  hundred  square  feet  sent  up  in  a  gentle  breeze  had  a  draught 
power  of  three  hundredweight  or  nine  hundredweight  in  a  brisk  gale. 
On  January  8, 1827,  Pocock  claimed  to  have  covered  several  miles  be- 
tween Bristol  and  Marlborough  at  twenty  miles  an  hour — a  speed 
which  he  remarks  need  not  be  thought  dangerous — and  that  on  this 
occasion  the  London  mail-coach  was  easily  overtaken.  Pocock  pro- 
posed also  to  apply  kites  to  marine  purposes  for  towing  boats  or 
life-saving  from  shipwrecks  on  a  lea  shore,  and  suggested  their  mili- 
tary use  for  elevating  a  man  in  reconnaissances  and  signalling — 
which  the  Chinese  had  done  centuries  ago.  Pocock's  kite-chariot,  of 
course,  was  not  a  practicable  scheme,  as  it  depended  on  the  winds, 
but  it  has  a  decidedly  Chinese  flavor.  In  1876  Joseph  Simmons,  it  is 
said,  was  drawn  into  the  air  to  a  height  of  six  hundred  feet  or  more 
by  means  of  two  superposed  kites,  and  then  adjusting  his  weight  by 
means  of  guy  lines  glided  down  to  earth.  He  filed  a  patent  for  his 
invention  (No.  2428,  1875)  as  "improved  means  and  apparatus  for 
conveying  or  carrying  human  beings  or  objects  into  mid-air."    In 


42  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

1868  Biot,  a  French  engineer  and  a  lifelong  experimenter  with  kites, 
was  lifted  from  the  ground  by  a  large  apparatus  of  this  kind.  In  1894 
Captain  B.  F.  S.  Baden-Powell,  of  the  Scots  Guards,  constructed  a 
kite  36  feet  high  consisting  of  four  or  five  superposed  kites,  with 
which  he  successfully  lifted  a  man  on  different  occasions  to  a  height 
of  a  hundred  feet.  In  1897  Lieutenant  H.  D.  Wise  made  experiments 
in  the  United  States  with  large  kites  of  the  Hargrave  type  and  suc- 
ceeded in  lifting  a  man  forty  feet  above  the  ground. 

It  was  Laurence  Hargrave,  an  Australian,  who  then  gave  a  fresh 
impetus  to  scientific  kite-flying.  He  realized  that  the  structure  best 
adapted  for  a  good  kite  would  also  be  suitable  as  a  basis  for  the  struct- 
ure of  a  flying-machine.  He  introduced  a  new  principle  and  invented 
what  is  known  as  the  "cellular  construction  of  kites."  This  is  a  kite 
composed  of  two  rectangular  cells  separated  by  a  considerable 
space — known  as  "the  Hargrave  box  kite"  (figured  in  National  Geo- 
graphic Magazine,  1903,  p.  221).  This  type  of  kite,  which  surpassed 
in  stability  all  previous  examples,  formed  the  starting-point  of  Alex- 
ander Graham  Bell's  epoch-making  researches  and  his  constructions 
of  triangular  and  tetrahedral  kites.  In  1903  Dr.  Bell  wrote,  "I  have 
had  the  feeling  that  a  properly  constructed  flying-machine  should  be 
capable  of  being  flown  as  a  kite;  and,  conversely,  that  a  properly 
constructed  kite  should  be  capable  of  use  as  a  flying-machine  when 
driven  by  its  own  propellers." 

In  December,  1907  Dr.  Bell  experimented  with  a  gigantic  man- 
lifting  kite,  the  Cygnet,  more  than  forty  feet  long,  which  was  sent  up 
both  with  and  without  a  man.  Lieutenant  Selfridge,  of  the  United 
States  Army,  ascended  with  this  kite  to  a  height  of  168  feet  and  re- 
mained in  the  air  for  over  seven  minutes.  Illustrations  of  these  highly 
interesting  experiments  may  be  viewed  in  the  National  Geographic 
Magazine  for  1908. 

Dr.  Bell's  prophetic  words  uttered  in  1903  have  at  present  been 
fulfilled.  The  wings  of  the  modern  biplane  are  closely  patterned  after 
the  Hargrave  box-kite  on  which  Dr.  Bell  inaugurated  his  experi- 
ments. The  man-lifting  kite  has  developed  into  an  airplane.  The 
speed  plane  of  our  times  is  but  a  first  cousin  to  the  kite. 


Another  Chinese  apparatus  deserves  mention  here,  as  it  served  as 
a  source  of  inspiration  to  Sir  George  Cayley  (1774-1857),  one  of  the 
great  pioneers  of  modern  aviation.  His  interest  in  aeronautics  was 
aroused  in  boyhood  by  the  invention  of  the  balloon  in  1783.  He  him- 


Kites  as  Precursors  of  Aeroplanes  43 

self  tells  us  that  his  first  experiment  in  such  matters  was  made  as 
early  as  1796  with  a  Chinese  or  aerial  top,  which  served  at  once  to 
illustrate  the  principle  of  the  helicopter  and  the  air-screw.  Though 
but  a  toy  of  a  few  inches  in  length,  its  capacity  to  demonstrate  certain 
elementary,  but  important  principles  in  aeronautics  made  a  lasting 
impression  on  Cay  ley's  youthful  mind,  and  only  three  years  before 
his  death  he  sent  to  Dupuis  Delcourt  a  drawing  of  one  which  he  had 
had  made,  the  best  he  had  ever  seen,  and  capable  of  rising  ninety  feet 
in  the  air.  This  drawing  is  reproduced  in  Hodgson's  book  (Fig.  135). 
The  original  of  one  of  these  aerial  tops  is  still  in  the  possession  of  Mrs. 
Thompson,  a  grand-daughter  of  Cayley. 


o 


THE  DAWN  OF  AIRSHIPS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA 

Although  the  Aryan  Indians  of  the  Vedic  period  had  numerous 
aerial  deities,  like  the  Gandharvas,  elfs  haunting  the  "fathomless 
spaces  of  air,"  no  allusion  is  made  in  the  Rigveda  to  their  manner  of 
locomotion,  and  none  is  described  as  possessed  of  wings.  Among  the 
divine  steeds  there  is  one  named  Dadhikra,  praised  for  his  swiftness, 
speeding  like  the  wind,  and  equipped  with  bird's  wings;  he  is  likened  to 
a  swooping  eagle  and  even  directly  called  an  eagle.  The  Vedic  gods 
did  not  fly,  but  preferred  driving  in  luminous  cars  usually  drawn  by 
fleet  horses,  in  some  cases  by  cows,  goats,  and  spotted  deer.  Indra, 
the  favorite  national  god  of  the  Vedic  Indians,  primarily  a  storm  and 
thunder-god,  conqueror  of  the  demons  of  drought  and  darkness,  and 
also  a  god  of  battle  who  aided  the  advancing  Aryans  in  their  struggle 
against  the  Dasyus,  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of  India,  is  borne  on  a 
golden  chariot  which  is  swifter  than  thought.  This  vehicle  is  drawn 
by  two  or  more  tawny,  sun-eyed  chargers  with  flowing  golden  manes 
and  hair  like  peacocks'  feathers.  Snorting  and  neighing,  they  rapidly 
traverse  vast  distances,  and  Indra  is  transported  by  them  "as  an 
eagle  is  borne  by  its  wings."  His  weapon  is  the  thunderbolt  (vajra), 
which  personifies  the  lightning  stroke  and  with  which  he  slays  his 
foes.  A  myth  of  post- Vedic  times  tells  of  quaking  mountains  pro- 
vided with  wings  and  gifted  with  the  power  of  flight:  they  flew  around 
like  birds,  alighted  wherever  they  pleased,  and  with  their  incessant 
motion  made  the  earth  unsteady.  With  his  thunderbolt  Indra  clipped 
the  wings  of  the  restive  mountains  and  settled  them  permanently  in 
their  place;  their  wings  were  transformed  into  thunder  clouds. 

The  Acvins  ("horsemen"),  twin  deities,  presumably  symbolizing 
the  dawn  and  the  morning  star,  travel  in  a  sun-like  chariot  all  parts 
of  which  are  golden  and  whose  construction  is  based  on  the  number 
three,  having  three  seats,  triple  wheels,  and  triple  fellies.  It  moves 
lightly,  is  swifter  than  "thought  or  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,"  and  is 
drawn  by  horses,  but  more  commonly  by  birds,  swans,  eagles,  or 
eagle  steeds.  It  touches  the  ends  of  heaven  and  extends  over  the  five 
countries,  it  races  round  heaven,  and  traverses  heaven  and  earth 
in  a  single  day.  They  also  have  a  car  which  without  draught  animals 
traverses  space.  The  Acvins  are  domiciled  in  heaven  or  in  the  air, 
and  appear  at  the  time  of  the  early  dawn  when  they  yoke  their  chariot 
to  descend  to  earth  and  receive  the  offering  of  worshippers.  Ushas, 
the  maiden  goddess  of  dawn,  the  most  poetical  figure  of  the  Vedic 

44 


The  Dawn  of  Airships  in  Ancient  India  45 

pantheon,  awakes  the  twin  gods;  she  drives  in  a  brilliant,  well-adorn- 
ed chariot  drawn  by  ruddy  steeds  or  kine.  The  Acvins  follow  Ushas 
in  their  car,  and  thus  their  relative  time  seems  to  have  been  between 
dawn  and  sunrise.  The  twin  brothers  have  the  particular  function 
of  coming  to  the  rescue  of  people  in  distress,  and  are  constantly 
praised  for  such  deeds.  The  story  most  often  referred  to  in  the  Rig- 
veda  is  that  of  the  deliverance  of  Bhujyu,  son  of  Tugra,  who  was 
abandoned  in  the  midst  of  the  ocean  or  in  the  water-cloud  and  who, 
tossed  about  in  darkness,  invoked  the  succor  of  the  youthful  heroes. 
They  rescued  him  with  animated,  water-tight  ships  which  traversed 
the  air  (a  sort  of  hydro-aeroplane),  or  with  an  animated  winged  boat 
(compare  Lana's  flying  ship,  Plate  V),  or  with  three  flying  cars  hav- 
ing a  hundred  feet  and  six  horses.  The  twins  are  wedded  to  the  sun- 
maiden  or  the  daughter  of  the  sun,  and  in  the  marriage  rite  they  are 
invoked  to  conduct  the  bride  home  in  their  chariot. 

The  Maruts,  gods  of  the  winds,  children  of  the  storm-cloud,  born 
from  the  laughter  of  lightning,  speed  in  cars  which  gleam  with  light- 
ning, drawn  by  spotted  coursers;  brilliant  as  fire,  they  carry  spears  on 
their  shoulders,  anklets  on  their  feet,  golden  ornaments  on  their 
breasts,  fiery  lightnings  in  their  hands,  and  golden  helmets  on  their 
heads.  They  are  also  described  as  having  yoked  the  winds  as  steeds 
to  their  pole;  that  is,  their  chariot  is  driven  by  the  winds. 

Surya,  the  sun  god,  the  far-seeing  spy  of  the  whole  world,  who 
beholds  all  beings  and  the  good  and  bad  deeds  of  mortals,  moves  in  a 
chariot  drawn  by  one  steed  or  by  seven  horses  or  mares.  In  various 
passages,  however,  he  is  conceived  as  a  bird  traversing  space,  is  rep- 
resented as  flying,  and  is  compared  with  a  flying  eagle.  The  god 
Agni,  the  personification  of  the  sacrificial  fire,  which  is  the  centre  of 
the  ritual  poetry  of  the  Veda,  drives  in  a  lightning  chariot,  described 
as  golden  and  luminous,  drawn  by  two  or  more  horses  impelled  by 
the  wind.  He  yokes  them  to  summon  the  gods  to  the  sacrifice,  and 
then  acts  as  their  charioteer,  bringing  Indra  from  the  sky,  the  Maruts 
from  the  air.  Agni  is  also  likened  to  or  directly  designated  a  bird, 
and  in  one  passage  is  spoken  of  as  the  eagle  of  the  sky. 

Another  Vedic  god,  Pushan,  who  is  closely  connected  with  the 
sun,  moves  in  golden  ships  sailing  over  the  aerial  ocean  (the  sky  is 
conceived  as  an  ocean:  thus,  also,  the  Acvins'  chariot  approaches 
from  the  celestial  ocean),  acting  as  messenger  of  Surya,  the  sun-god; 
making  his  abode  in  heaven,  he  moves  onward,  beholding  the  uni- 
verse. He  is  praised  as  the  best  of  charioteers  or  air-pilots,  and 
drives  with  a  pair  of  goats,  presumably  because  the  goat  is  a  bold 


46  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

climber  and  appears  fittest  to  clamber  the  dizzy  heights  of  heaven. 
The  sun  likewise  appears  as  a  boat  in  which  Varuna,  the  god  of  the  en- 
compassing sky,  navigates  the  aerial  sea.  This  primitive  conception 
naturally  arose  from  the  experience  of  seeing  the  sun  set  in  the  ocean, 
and  being  animated  with  a  personality,  he  required  a  ship  to  guide 
him  out  of  the  sea  toward  his  path  along  the  sky.  On  the  one  hand, 
therefore,  the  sun  functions  as  a  charioteer,  and  is  symbolized  by  the 
horse  and  the  wheel;  on  the  other  hand,  as  a  boat  and  boatman: 
Hence,  in  India,  the  idea  of  an  airship  developed  from  that  of  a  solar 
ship.  Similar  notions  occur  among  other  peoples.  Re,  the  Egyptian 
sun  god,  is  the  owner  of  two  barks,  changing  from  one  to  another  in 
the  morning  and  evening. 

Greek  philosophers  style  the  sun  "boat-shaped,"  and  Helios  rides 
in  a  golden  boat  from  sunset  to  sunrise.  In  songs  of  the  Letts  the 
setting  sun  must  be  rescued  and  taken  in  a  boat  to  save  his  life;  or 
the  sun  sadly  bewails  the  sinking  of  the  golden  ship  into  the  sea,  and 
is  consoled  by  the  wish  that  God  might  build  a  new  one. 

In  one  of  the  Jatakas  (No.  159)  or  stories  of  the  Buddha's  former 
births,  a  king  of  Benares  owns  a  jewelled  car  in  which  he  used  to  race 
through  mid-air.  Gunavarman  (A.D.  367-431),  a  Buddhist  monk 
from  India,  sailed  from  Ceylon  to  Java,  where  he  was  to  convert  one 
of  the  kings  to  Buddhism.  A  day  prior  to  his  landing  in  Java,  the 
king's  mother  had  a  dream  to  the  effect  that  a  religious  friar  had 
embarked  on  a  flying  ship  and  would  enter  the  kingdom ;  on  the  fol- 
lowing morning  Gunavarman  indeed  arrived  in  person.  In  the  pre- 
lude to  the  fifth  act  of  Bhavabhuti's  drama  Malatimadhava,  a  sor- 
cerer's maid  appears  in  "a  chariot  traversing  the  air." 


In  post-Vedic  literature,  the  vehicle  of  the  god  Vishnu  is  Garuda, 
the  chief  and  lord  of  birds,  a  celestial  bird, — originally  a  solar  bird. 
This  purely  mythological  conception  proved  very  fertile  in  stimu- 
lating imagination  and,  according  to  Indian  stories,  led  to  construc- 
tions of  airships  and  attempts  at  flying. 

The  Panchatantra  (I,  5),  the  most  popular  collection  of  Indian 
folk-lore,  contains  the  story  of  the  Weaver  as  Vishnu.  A  weaver 
became  infatuated  with  the  king's  daughter;  and  his  friend,  a  car- 
penter, made  for  him  a  wooden  airship  in  the  shape  of  a  Garuda,  the 
mythical  bird  and  vehicle  of  the  god  Vishnu,  which  was  set  in  motion 
by  means  of  a  switch  or  spring.  Equipped  with  all  paraphernalia  of 
the  god,  the  weaver  mounted  the  machine;  and  when  the  carpenter 
had  explained  to  him  how  to  manipulate  the  switch,  he  hopped  off 


The  Dawn  of  Airships  in  Ancient  India  47 

and  dropped  in  on  the  seventh  story  of  the  palace,  where  the  princess 
had  her  apartment.  Seeing  him  astride  the  Garuda  in  the  splendor  of 
Vishnu's  regalia,  she  took  him  for  the  creator  of  the  three  worlds, 
and  he  married  her  instantly  according  to  the  rites  of  the  Gandharva 
marriage  (i.  e.  by  mutual  consent,  without  ceremony),  and  then  con- 
tinued his  relations  with  the  princess  for  some  time  until  her  guards 
suspected  her  and  made  a  report  to  the  king.  He  questioned  her,  but 
her  explanation  that  she  is  the  consort  of  a  god  gratified  his  vanity. 
Believing  himself  in  alliance  with  Vishnu  who  would  grant  him  the 
rule  over  the  world,  the  king  became  overbearing  toward  his  neigh- 
boring kings,  who  consequently  made  war  on  him.  Through  his 
daughter  he  implored  the  pseudo- Vishnu  to  come  to  his  rescue.  This 
one,  in  despair,  appeared  in  the  air  above  the  battle-field,  armed  with 
bow  and  arrow  and  ready  to  die;  but  Vishnu  himself,  fearing  that 
if  the  weaver  disguised  as  Vishnu  were  killed  his  own  authority  among 
men  might  suffer,  entered  into  the  weaver's  body  and  scattered  the 
king's  enemies.  After  the  victory  was  obtained,  the  weaver  descended 
from  the  sky;  and  recognized  by  the  king,  his  ministers  and  the 
people,  told  the  whole  story,  whereupon  the  king  highly  honored  him, 
solemnly  married  him  to  his  daughter,  and  rewarded  him  with  a  large 
estate.  The  most  interesting  point  of  this  story  is  that  the  bird-plane 
is  utilized  for  military  purposes  to  defeat  and  rout  an  army.  When  we 
read  that  Abhayakara,  a  saint  of  the  ninth  century  from  Bengal, 
assumed  the  form  of  a  Garuda  to  disperse  an  army  of  Turushkas 
(Turks),  we  must  understand  that  he  was  mounted  on  a  Garuda- 
plane  which  functioned  as  a  war-plane. 

A  dirigible  airship  is  described  in  the  celebrated  old  collection  of 
Indian  stories  known  as  "The  Twenty-five  Tales  of  a  Vetala,"  which 
is  as  well  known  in  India  as  the  Panchatantra  and  which  was  trans- 
lated into  Tibetan  and  Mongol ;  it  is  usually  quoted  under  its  Mongol 
title  Siddhi  Kiir.  The  heroes  of  this  tale  are  six  young  men, — the  son 
of  a  rich  man,  a  physician's  son,  a  painter's  son,  a  mathematician's 
son,  a  carpenter's  son,  and  the  son  of  a  smith,  who  leave  home  in 
quest  of  adventure  in  a  foreign  land.  The  first  of  them  won  the  hand 
of  a  beautiful  woman  of  divine  origin,  but  she  was  soon  kidnapped 
by  a  powerful  king  who  took  her  into  his  harem.  The  six  youths 
conspired  to  rescue  the  stolen  wife  from  her  captivity,  and  the  car- 
penter's son  hit  upon  the  scheme  to  construct  a  wooden  bird,  called 
Garuda,  whose  interior  was  equipped  with  an  elaborate  apparatus 
which  allowed  the  machine  to  fly  in  various  directions  and  to  change 
its  course  at  will:  it  was  provided  with  three  springs.    When  the 


48  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

spring  in  front  was  touched,  the  aeroplane  flew  upward;  when  the 
springs  on  the  sides  were  tipped,  it  floated  evenly  along;  when  the 
spring  beneath  was  pressed,  it  made  its  descent.  The  painter's  son 
decorated  the  Garuda  in  various  colors,  so  that  it  could  not  be  dis- 
tinguished from  a  real  bird.  The  rich  youth  boarded  the  machine, 
pressed  the  spring,  and  crossed  the  air  in  the  direction  of  the  king's 
palace,  where  he  soared  above  the  roof.  The  king  and  his  people 
were  amazed,  for  they  had  never  before  seen  such  a  gigantic  bird. 
The  king  bade  his  consort  to  ascend  the  palace  and  offer  food  to  the 
strange  visitor.  So  she  did,  and  the  bird  descended.  The  aviator 
opened  the  door  of  the  machine,  made  himself  known,  seated  his 
former  wife  inside,  and  hopped  off  with  her,  navigating  his  way  back 
to  his  companions — in  the  same  manner  as  we  have  all  seen  it  in  the 
movies  with  modern  airships. 

In  the  Sanskrit  version  of  the  same  story,  as  embodied  in  Soma- 
deva's  Katha  Sarit  Sagara  ("Ocean  of  Streams  of  Stories"),  an  ex- 
cellent Brahman,  Harisvamin,  has  a  beautiful  daughter  who  wants 
to  marry  only  a  man  possessed  of  heroism  and  knowledge,  or  magic 
power.  The  first  suitor,  thus  informed,  professed  to  command  magic 
power.  At  the  father's  request  to  demonstrate  it,  he  immediately 
constructed  by  his  skill  a  chariot  that  would  fly  through  the  air,  and 
in  a  moment  he  took  Harisvamin  up  in  that  magic  chariot  and  showed 
him  heaven  and  all  the  world,  and  he  brought  him  back  delighted  to 
the  camp  of  the  king  of  the  Deccan  to  whom  he  had  been  sent  as  an 
ambassador  to  negotiate  a  treaty.  Then  Harisvamin  promised  his 
daughter  to  that  man  possessed  of  supernatural  power.  His  son  pro- 
mised her  to  a  man  skilful  in  the  use  of  missiles  and  hand-to-hand 
weapons,  and  his  wife  promised  her  to  a  man  who  professed  to  have 
supernatural  knowledge.  When  the  three  bridegrooms  appeared  on 
the  wedding  day  in  Harisvamin's  house,  it  happened  that  the  in- 
tended bride  had  disappeared  in  some  inexplicable  manner.  The 
possessor  of  knowledge  soon  found  out  that  an  ogre  (Rakshasa)  had 
carried  her  off  to  his  habitation  in  the  Vindhya  forest.  The  possessor 
of  magic  power  prepared,  as  previously,  a  chariot  that  would  fly 
through  the  air,  provided  with  all  kinds  of  weapons.  Harisvamin, 
the  man  of  knowledge,  and  the  brave  man  jumped  into  the  airship 
with  him.  In  a  moment  they  were  carried  to  the  Rakshasa's  dwelling- 
place.  The  giant  was  duly  slain  by  the  brave  man,  the  Brahman's 
daughter  was  released,  and  they  all  returned  home  in  the  flying  chariot. 

A  fundamental  document  referring  to  airships  is  found  in  Bu- 
dhasvamin's  Brihat  Katha,  Clokasamgraha  (edited  and  translated  into 


The  Dawn  of  Airships  in  Ancient  India  49 

French  by  F.  Lacote,  1908),  a  collection  of  stories  written  during  the 
eleventh  century.  Vasavadatta  desired  to  mount  an  aerial  chariot 
and  thus  to  visit  the  entire  earth.  Vasantaka,  the  master  of  games, 
exclaimed  laughingly,  "The  wives  of  the  king's  servants  had  just  the 
same  craving.  I  said  to  all,  'Suspend  a  swing  with  long  poles,  mount 
it,  and  you  will  ascend  into  the  air.  Your  husbands  do  not  know  of 
any  other  way  of  satisfying  your  desire.'  If  she  had  a  notion  to  travel 
through  the  air,  she  must  be  content  with  the  same  medium."  All 
burst  out  laughing.  "Stop  joking,  and  come  to  the  point,"  Rumanvat 
said.  "What  good  is  it  to  dream  thereof?"  Yaugandharayana 
spoke,  "This  is  exclusively  an  affair  of  artisans."  Rumanvat  sum- 
moned the  carpenters  and  enjoined  them  to  make  without  delay  a 
machine  capable  of  traversing  the  air.  After  a  long  deliberation 
these  said  frightened  and  stammering,  "We  know  only  four  kinds  of 
machines,  but  as  regards  flying-machines,  they  are  known  only  to 
the  Yavanas  (the  Greeks),  but  we  never  had  occasion  to  see  them." 

Farther  on,  in  the  same  story,  Vicvila  mounts  a  mechanical 
cock  and  makes  a  trip  through  the  air.  At  his  return  he  speaks  to  the 
king's  ambassadors  thus:  "It  is  not  proper  to  reveal  to  any  one,  arti- 
san or  any  other  person,  the  secret  of  the  aerial  machines,  which  is 
difficult  to  obtain  for  whoever  is  not  a  Yavana  (a  Greek).  It  is  the 
same  matter  as  the  secret  of  the  manufacture  of  beds;  if  it  leaks  out, 
it  would  become  common  property,  and  the  public  would  treat  it 
with  disdain,  for  fashion  is  the  creation  of  the  moment.  To  bring 
this  respectable  art  into  disfavor  is  a  grave  sin,  so  let  us  drop  this 
matter."  A  month  later  Pukvasaka,  a  clever  carpenter  and  crafts- 
man, said  to  Vicvila,  who  was  his  son-in-law,  "The  king  took  me 
aside  to-day  and  told  me  with  a  gentle  smile  that  I  must  reveal  to 
him  this  science  of  aerial  machines.  I  replied  that  I  did  not  reveal  it  to 
you,  but  that  it  was  Greek  artisans  with  whom  you  had  curried  favor. 
The  king  waxed  angry  and  threatened  my  life.  Save  my  life  and  my 
sons,  therefore,  by  revealing  to  the  king  the  secret  of  these  machines, 
since  it  is  his  desire!"  Vicvila  consented,  but  during  the  night  awa- 
kened his  sleeping  wife,  Ratnavali,  and  said,  "I  have  to  inform  you 
that  I  am  returning  to  my  country.  Your  father  employs  intrigues 
to  banish  me  from  this  place:  he  wants  to  wrest  from  me  the  secret 
of  the  flying-machines  which  it  is  our  duty  to  keep  concealed,  as  a 
miser  guards  his  treasure.  But  enough,  it  is  my  life  or  your  father 
who  is  dear  to  you.  In  order  to  guard  my  secret,  I  shall  go  so  far  as  to 
forsake  you!"  He  and  his  wife  mounted  the  machine  in  the  form  of  a 
cock,  and  during  the  night  made  an  ascent  and  escaped  into  the 


50  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

country  whence  he  had  come....  The  commander-in-chief  assembled 
all  the  artisans,  gave  them  a  flogging,  and  ordered  them  to  construct 
a  flying-machine.  Meanwhile  a  stranger  appeared  and  said,  "I  shall 
construct  the  machine  for  you;  do  not  flog  the  artisans!  Give  me 
immediately  the  necessary  appliances."  These  were  at  once  furnished 
by  Rumanvat.  One  of  the  artisans  said  to  the  stranger,  "Ask  the 
commander-in-chief  for  the  number  of  passengers.  Because  they 
did  not  know  how  many  passengers  they  could  transport,  kings  saw 
their  chariot  sink,  and  more  than  one  artisan,  it  is  said,  has  therefore 
suffered  their  wrath."  The  other  responded,  "These  must  have  been 
wretched  village  artisans!  But  it  is  of  no  avail  to  waste  so  many 
words.  Wait  a  moment!"  In  the  nick  of  time  he  produced  a  flying 
chariot  in  the  form  of  a  Garuda,  adorned  with  Mandara  flowers,  and 
said  to  the  king,  "Oh  king,  Vishnu  of  the  kings,  mount  the  Garuda 
and  traverse  the  earth  formerly  traversed  by  Vishnu!"  "Madam," 
the  king  said  to  the  queen,  "what  do  you  tarry  now?  Mount  this 
chariot  and  depart  in  accordance  with  your  wish!"  "My  consort," 
she  responded,  "without  you  I  do  not  even  go  into  the  garden;  with- 
out you,  how  could  I  support  myself  in  the  vacuum  of  the  celestial 
space?"  The  king  reported  these  words  to  the  craftsman,  who  ex- 
claimed, "But  this  chariot  can  carry  the  entire  city!"  Thereupon  the 
king  took  his  seat  in  the  chariot  together  with  the  personnel  of  the 
harem,  his  wives,  his  officials,  and  a  section  of  each  urban  corporation. 
They  gained  the  pure  spaces  of  the  firmament,  and  finally  took  the 
route  of  the  winds.  The  chariot  circumambulated  the  earth  girt  by 
the  ocean,  and  then  was  directed  toward  the  city  of  the  Avantis, 
where  the  festival  of  the  offering  of  the  water  was  held.  The  machine 
was  stopped,  so  that  the  king  might  enjoy  the  spectacle.  After  a 
brief  stay  the  king  departed  for  Kaugambi  under  the  eyes  of  the 
multitude  which  admired  the  chariot,  and  acquitted  himself  of  his 
obligations  toward  the  immortals,  the  priests,  the  sacred  fires,  his 
parents,  his  servants  and  burghers.  Then  he  commanded  to  do 
honors  to  the  craftsman. 

In  a  Sanskrit  romance,  the  Harshacharita  ("Deeds  of  King  Har- 
sha"),  written  by  Bana  in  the  seventh  century,  mention  is  made  of  a 
king,  Kakavarna.  Being  desirous  of  marvels,  he  was  carried  away, 
no  one  knows  whither,  on  an  artificial  aerial  car  made  by  a  Yavana 
(Greek)  who  had  been  taken  prisoner.  The  term  used  in  this  passage 
means  literally,  "a  mechanical  vehicle  (yantrayana)  which  travels  on 
the  surface  of  the  air;"  that  is,  an  airship. 


The  Dawn  of  Airships  in  Ancient  India  51 

From  the  preceding  texts  it  follows  that  the  Indians  profess  to 
have  had  two  distinct  types  of  flying-machines, — the  Garuda  airship 
of  native  manufacture  constructed  on  the  principle  of  bird-flight,  and 
the  Yavana  airship  ascribed  to  the  Yavanas  or  Greeks,  the  manu- 
facture of  which  was  scrupulously  guarded  as  a  secret. 

The  first  question  to  be  raised  is,  Did  the  ancient  Indians  really 
navigate  the  air?  Are  their  dirigibles  realities  or  fiction,  merely  the 
upshot  of  a  poetic  imagination?  To  my  way  of  thinking  this  point  is 
irrelevant.  The  main  point  is:  they  had  the  idea;  and  their  ideas 
about  aeronautics  were  not  worse  or  more  defective  than  those  enter- 
tained in  Europe  from  the  sixteenth  to  the  first  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

The  Indians  saw  two  points  clearly — that  aircraft  must  operate 
on  the  principle  of  the  flight  of  birds  and  that  a  mechanism  is  required 
to  start  the  machine,  to  keep  it  in  mid-air,  and  to  make  a  descent. 
Whether  they  actually  flew  or  not,  whether  they  succeeded  or  failed, 
the  stories  cited  (and  another  will  be  given  below)  are  sufficient  evi- 
dence of  the  fact  that  they  devoted  considerable  thought  to  problems 
of  the  air  and  aeronautics  and  that  as  a  sequel  of  a  highly  developed 
mechanical  science  efforts  were  made  to  construct  aircraft  of  various 
types. 

The  second  query  that  we  may  revolve  in  our  mind  is,  Did  the 
Greeks,  as  asserted  by  the  Indians,  really  supply  them  with  flying- 
machines?  A  direct  response  to  this  inquiry  is  not  forthcoming  from 
the  Greek  camp.  The  Greek  mechanicians,  in  the  ingenuity  of  their 
inventions  perhaps  the  greatest  of  all  times,  are  silent  as  to  aircraft. 
Perhaps  the  information  is  lost;  for  myself  I  see  nothing  impossible 
in  the  assumption  that  the  Greeks  of  the  Alexandrian  epoch  should 
have  made  successful  experiments  in  mechanical  flights. 

Greek  mechanics  and  artisans  enjoyed  a  high  reputation  in  India, 
and  marvellous  inventions  were  ascribed  to  them.  The  Indians  have 
numerous  stories  of  wonderful  automata  set  in  motion  by  intricate 
machinery;  for  instance,  movable  figures  of  beautiful  women  who 
may  even  assume  life,  tempt  men  and  cause  a  quarrel  among  them, 
wooden  figures  of  men  able  to  strut,  sing  and  dance,  artificial  ele- 
phants moving  by  means  of  a  mechanical  apparatus,  or  artificial 
fishes  which  appear  to  swim  under  a  floor  of  rock-crystal  looking 
like  water.  It  is  noteworthy,  again,  that  in  some  tales  such  mechani- 
cal marvels  are  attributed  to  the  Greeks;  thus,  a  painter  from  central 
India  once  travelled  on  business  to  the  land  of  the  Greeks  (Yavana), 
and  took  up  his  abode  in  the  house  of  a  mechanician  who  made  an  arti- 


52  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

ficial  maiden  to  wait  upon  the  painter.  She  washed  his  feet  and  then 
stood  still;  he  called  to  her  to  draw  near,  but  she  .made  no  reply.  He 
seized  her  by  the  hand,  and  when  he  tried  to  embrace  her,  the  figure 
collapsed  and  turned  into  a  heap  of  chips.  In  another  tale,  an  Indian 
carver  in  ivory  travels  to  the  land  of  the  Greeks  and  settles  in  the 
house  of  a  Greek  painter.  The  great  mechanicians  of  Alexandria 
were  very  proficient  in  the  construction  of  mechanical  toys  and 
figures,  and  we  still  have  Heron's  work  on  the  Automatic  Theatre 
(Automatopoietika),  written  in  the  second  century  before  our  era. 
Heron  was  the  founder  of  a  school,  surveyor,  mechanician,  and  the 
greatest  physicist  of  ancient  times. 

Maybe,  because  so  many  wonders  of  technique  were  created  by 
the  Greeks,  the  poets  of  India  reasoned  that  aircraft  also  must  have 
been  due  to  their  genius.  We  do  not  know,  but  what  we  do  know  at 
present  is  that  in  the  records  of  ancient  Indian  lore  are  distinguished 
two  types  of  flying  apparatus — the  native  Garuda  airship  and  the  im- 
ported Yavana  airship.  Here  remains  a  fascinating  problem  which 
more  abundant  documentary  material  that  may  come  to  light  in 
the  future  will  help  us  solve. 


As  regards  winged  flight,  only  one  example  is  known  to  me  from 
Indian  literature.  The  Katha  Sarit  Sagara  ("Ocean  of  Streams  of 
Stories")  contains  the  following  good  tale:  "Once  upon  a  time  there 
was  a  young  Brahman  who  one  day  beheld  a  prince  of  the  Siddhas 
flying  through  the  air.  Wishing  to  rival  him,  he  fastened  to  his  sides 
wings  of  grass,  and  continually  leaping  up,  he  tried  to  learn  the  art 
of  flying  in  the  air.  As  he  continued  to  make  this  useless  attempt 
every  day,  he  was  at  last  seen  by  the  prince  while  he  was  roaming 
through  the  air.  The  prince  thought,  'I  ought  to  take  pity  on  this 
boy  who  shows  spirit  in  struggling  earnestly  to  attain  an  impossible 
object,  for  it  is  my  duty  to  patronize  such.'  Thereupon,  being  pleased, 
he  took  the  Brahman  boy,  by  his  magic  power,  upon  his  shoulder,  and 
made  him  one  of  his  followers."  In  Indian  art,  particularly  in  the 
sculpture  of  the  Buddhists,  winged  beings  in  the  act  of  flying  are 
frequently  represented,  and  such  types  like  the  Apsarases  and  Kin- 
naras  have  also  been  adopted  by  the  Chinese.  Plate  X  illustrates 
a  fine  Chinese  marble  sculpture  from  the  Blackstone  Chinese  Col- 
lection of  the  Museum:  two  Apsarases  or  heavenly  nymphs  are  flying 
down  from  Indra's  celestial  abode  to  guard  the  Buddha  Amitabha. 

I  shall  not  dwell  at  length  on  the  alleged  power  of  flightacquired 
by  magical  practices  or  witchcraft,  first  taught  in  the  Yoga  system 


The  Dawn  of  Airships  in  Ancient  India  53 

and  from  it  transplanted  into  Buddhism.  Among  the  marvellous 
abilities  promised  as  a  reward  of  Yoga  practice  there  were  under- 
standing of  the  speech  of  animals,  assuming  any  shapes,  resuscitating 
the  dead,  descent  into  the  inferno,  fast  locomotion,  penetrating  every- 
where as  air  does,  being  poised  cross-legged  in  the  air,  and  traversing 
the  air.  What  has  been  observed  of  "flying"  among  the  modern 
Yogins  proved  to  be  walking  or  hopping  close  to  the  surface  of  the 
ground  without  seemingly  touching  it.  A  few  examples  from  Bud- 
dhist literature  may  suffice. 

In  a  Buddhistic  story  entitled  The  Magician's  Pupil  (Schiefner- 
Ralston,  Tibetan  Tales,  p.  288)  a  man  of  the  Chandala  caste  (the 
lowest  and  most  despised  Pariah  class)  is  versed  in  spells  and  magic 
lore,  and  obtains  by  means  of  spells  from  the  Gandhamadana  moun- 
tain fruits  and  flowers  as  are  not  in  season,  and  these  he  presents  to 
the  king.  A  Brahman  youth  becomes  his  pupil,  and  when  taught  the 
art  of  magic,  immediately  makes  a  trial  of  his  art  on  the  spot  and 
soars  into  the  sky,  reaching  the  fabulous  mountain  where  he  plucks 
fruits  and  flowers. 

In  one  of  the  Jatakas  (No.  186)  is  mentioned  a  gem  endowed  with 
magic  power  and  capable  of  raising  into  the  air  whoever  holds  it  in 
his  mouth.  By  his  own  miraculous  power  the  Buddha  is  able  to  rise 
in  the  air,  to  be  poised  in  mid-air,  and  to  travel  through  the  air 
wherever  it  pleases  him. 

What  is  more  interesting  are  two  charming  motifs  of  folk-lore 
presented  by  India  to  the  world —  the  magic  boots  and  the  enchanted 
horse. 

The  Katha  Sarit  Sagara  contains  the  following  tale  (in  the  trans- 
lation of  C.  H.  Tawney): — 

"King  Putraka,  faithful  to  his  promise,  entered  the  impassable 
wilds  of  the  Vindhya,  disgusted  with  his  relations.  As  he  wandered 
about,  he  saw  two  heroes  engaged  heart  and  soul  in  a  wrestling 
match,  and  he  asked  them  who  they  were.  They  replied,  'We  are  the 
two  sons  of  the  Asura  Maya,  and  his  wealth  belongs  to  us, — this 
vessel,  this  stick,  and  these  shoes;  it  is  for  these  that  we  are  fighting 
and  whichever  of  us  proves  the  mightier  is  to  take  them/  When  he 
heard  this  speech  of  theirs,  Putraka  said  with  a  smile,  'That  is  a  fine 
inheritance  for  a  man!'  Then  they  said,  'By  putting  on  these  shoes 
one  gains  the  power  of  flying  through  the  air;  whatever  is  written 
with  this  staff  turns  out  true;  and  whatever  food  a  man  wishes  to 
have  in  the  vessel  is  found  there  immediately.'  When  he  heard  this, 
Putraka  said,  'What  is  the  use  of  fighting?   Make  this  agreement, 


54  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

that  whoever  proves  the  best  man  in  running  shall  possess  this 
wealth.'  Those  simpletons  said,  'Agreed,'  and  set  off  to  run,  while 
the  prince  put  on  the  shoes  and  flew  up  in  the  air,  taking  with  him 
the  staff  and  the  vessel.  Then  he  went  a  great  distance  in  a  short 
time  and  saw  beneath  him  a  beautiful  city  named  Akarshika  and 
descended  into  it  from  the  sky.  Subsequently  the  king  fell  in  love 
withthe  daughter  of  a  king,  and  one  night  flew  up  through  the  air  to 
the  window  of  her  room  by  the  aid  of  his  magic  shoes.  Later  on  he 
eloped  with  her  by  taking  her  in  his  arms  and  flying  away  through 
the  air,  finally  descending  from  heaven  near  the  banks  of  the  Ganges." 

This  story  is  also  extant  in  a  Chinese  translation  (S.  Julien,  Ava- 
danas,  No.  34,  and  E.  Chavannes,  Cinq  cent  contes,  Vol.  II,  p.  185), 
and  has  likewise  migrated  to  Europe  (Grimm,  Marchen,  No.  92, 
where  the  three  wondrous  objects  are  almost  identical). 

The  legends  of  later  Buddhist  saints,  as  related  in  Tibetan  records, 
frequently  mention  a  "swift-foot  apparatus"  for  rapid  locomotion. 
In  one  case  we  are  informed  that  such  boots  were  made  of  the  leaves 
of  trees,  the  underlying  idea  apparently  being  that  they  should  be  as 
light  in  weight  as  possible.  The  owner  of  this  footgear  was  the  saint 
Vararuchi  who  had  obtained  it  by  virtue  of  magic  spells;  whenever 
he  donned  it,  he  was  able  to  penetrate  into  the  abodes  of  gods  and 
serpent-demons  (Nagas)  and  to  abstract  many  treasures  with  which 
he  delighted  the  hearts  of  the  poor.  Once  he  had  a  quarrel  with  the 
king  who  suspected  him  of  using  evil  spells  against  his  life  and  who 
sent  a  messenger  to  do  away  with  him.  Vararuchi  put  on  his  magic 
boots  and  fled  to  the  city  Ujjayini.  The  king  employed  a  woman 
to  trick  him  out  of  his  boots,  and  when  unable  to  flee,  he  was  over- 
powered by  the  royal  henchman. 

The  thousand-league  boots  are  well  known  to  European  folk-lore; 
they  belong,  for  instance,  to  the  equipment  of  the  ogre  in  the  tale  of 
Petit  Poucet. 

In  a  Swedish  story  entitled  "The  Beautiful  Palace  East  of  the 
Sun  and  North  of  the  Earth"  a  youth  acquires  boots  by  means  of 
which  he  can  travel  a  hundred  miles  at  every  step,  and  a  cloak  that 
renders  him  invisible  in  a  very  similar  way. 

A  recipe  for  making  magic  boots  is  thus  given  in  an  Icelandic 
story:  "A  giant  told  a  woman  that  Hermodr  was  in  a  certain  desert 
island  which  he  named  to  her;  but  could  not  get  her  thither  unless 
she  flayed  the  soles  of  her  feet  and  made  shoes  for  herself  out  of  the 
skin;  and  these  shoes,  when  made,  would  be  of  such  a  nature  that  they 
would  take  her  through  the  air,  or  over  the  water,  as  she  liked." 


The  Dawn  of  Airships  in  Ancient  India  55 

The  enchanted  horse  of  later  Indian  folk-lore  is  doubtless  evolved 
from  the  solar  horse  of  early  Vedic  mythology.  From  India  this 
motif  spread  westward  and  was  adopted  into  the  Arabian  Nights 
and  many  other  collections  of  stories.  In  the  Nights  the  flying  horse, 
made  of  ebony,  can  perform  in  a  single  day  a  journey  which  under 
normal  conditions  would  take  a  year;  for  the  purpose  of  making  the 
horse  descend  it  is  necessary  to  rub  the  switch  on  its  left  shoulder. 

In  an  Armenian  story  of  Persian  origin,  entitled  "Solomon's 
Garden  and  Its  Mysteries,"  Giil,  a  servant  of  Solomon,  possesses  two 
wonderful  steeds, — the  horse  of  the  wind  and  the  horse  of  the  clouds, 
which  Solomon  had  bequeathed  to  him.  The  cloud-horse  was  not 
so  fleet,  but  always  followed  in  the  track  of  the  wind-horse. 

In  a  collection  of  Jaina  stories  (Samyaktvakaumudi)  it  is  narrated 
that  Samudradatta  was  a  groom  in  the  service  of  a  horse-dealer  and 
received  from  him  in  compensation  two  horses  which  he  was  allowed 
to  choose  himself.  He  won  the  love  of  his  master's  daughter  at  whose 
advice  he  picked  two  ill-shaped  horses:  one  of  these  was  capable  of 
running  through  the  air,  the  other  was  able  to  go  through  water. 
On  the  air  horse  he  returned  home  together  with  his  wife. 

In  Jataka  No  196  the  Bodhisatva  comes  into  the  world  as  a 
flying  horse,  white  all  over  and  with  a  beak  like  that  of  a  crow,  pos- 
sessed of  supernatural  power,  able  to  fly  through  the  air.  From  the 
Himalaya  he  made  a  non-stop  flight  to  Ceylon.  There  he  passed  over 
the  ponds  and  tanks  of  the  island  and  lived  on  wild-growing  rice. 
Then  he  took  back  a  number  of  ship-wrecked  traders  who  had  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  flesh-devouring  ogres, — some  climbing  up  on  his 
back,  some  laying  hold  of  his  tail, — and  conveyed  all  of  them  to 
their  own  country,  and  set  down  each  in  his  own  place. 

The  collection  of  stories  known  as  "The  Thirty-two  Tales  of  the 
Lion-throne"  or  "Tales  of  King  Vikramaditya"  contains  the  account 
of  an  air-journey  on  an  enchanted  horse  (No.  8),  treated  very  much 
like  the  Garuda  airships  aforementioned,  and  is  remarkable  for  the 
vividness  of  impressions  received  by  the  traveller  in  the  air. 

A  carpenter  once  appeared  before  a  king,  leading  a  wooden  horse 
richly  caparisoned  and  in  every  respect  looking  like  a  live  animal. 
The  king  did  not  think  much  of  it,  except  that  it  was  a  clever  model 
of  a  horse  as  any  workman  could  accomplish,  when  the  carpenter 
called  his  majesty's  attention  to  the  mechanical  apparatus  in  the 
interior,  which  would  allow  him  to  reach  any  place  he  wished  in  a 
few  moments.  The  king,  who  was  interested  in  every  uncommon 
thing  and  had  never  before  seen  a  mechanical  contrivance  of  such 


56  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

wonderful  make,  bade  the  carpenter  to  mount  the  horse.  In  an  in- 
stant the  man  was  seated  on  its  back,  and  before  any  one  had  time 
to  notice  what  he  did  in  setting  the  machine  in  motion,  both  horse 
and  rider  had  flown  up  and  vanished.  In  a  quarter  of  an  hour  he 
alighted  on  the  ground,  guiding  his  horse  to  the  foot  of  the  throne, 
and  dismounted.  When  the  king  had  seen  the  amazing  speed  at 
which  the  horse  could  fly  through  the  air,  he  was  seized  by  the  ardent 
desire  to  possess  the  magical  steed  and  paid  the  carpenter  a  large 
sum  for  it  (two  lakhs  of  rupees;  that  is,  two  hundred  thousand  rupees). 
The  following  evening  the  king  mounted  the  hippoplane,  and 
turning  the  starting  switch,  took  to  the  air  and  was  out  of  sight  in  a 
moment.  The  rapid  movement  took  the  king  by  surprise:  he  felt 
dizzy  and  saw  nothing  around  him  but  blue  ether,  wishing  he  had 
never  made  the  ascent.  For  an  hour  he  continued  to  rise  higher  and 
higher  till  the  mountains  below  could  not  be  distinguished  from  the 
plains,  and  in  a  moment  all  earthly  landmarks  passed  out  of  sight. 
Then  he  thought  it  was  time  to  descend,  and  imagined  that  all  he 
had  to  do  was  to  turn  the  same  switch  in  the  opposite  direction,  but 
to  his  horror  he  found  that,  turn  as  he  might,  he  did  not  at  all  change 
his  course.  In  his  impatience  to  acquire  the  horse  he  had  forgotten  to 
inquire  how  to  descend  to  earth.  He  set  about  to  examine  the  horse's 
neck,  till  at  last  he  discovered  a  tiny  switch  close  to  the  right  ear. 
This  he  turned  and  the  next  moment  found  himself  dropping  down 
toward  the  earth,  somewhat  more  slowly  than  he  had  ascended.  It 
was  dark,  and  as  he  was  unable  to  see,  he  was  fain  to  allow  the  horse 
to  take  his  own  course.  It  so  happened  that  the  machine  struck 
against  the  top  of  a  tree,  and  the  king,  bruised  and  bleeding,  fell  to 
the  ground,  but  escaped  serious  injury.  He  had  landed  in  a  dense 
jungle,  where  he  discovered  an  enchanted  princess  with  whom  he 
fell  in  love. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  his  experiences  in  the  air,  as  he  relates 
them  to  the  princess:  "In  an  instant  I  was  soaring  much  faster  than 
the  speed  of  an  arrow,  and  I  felt  I  was  approaching  the  sky  so  closely 
that  I  should  soon  hit  my  head  against  it.  I  could  discern  nothing 
beneath  me,  nothing  around  me  save  the  invisible  air,  and  for  some 
time  I  was  so  confused  that  I  did  not  know  in  what  direction  I  was 
travelling.  At  last  when  it  grew  dark,  I  found  a  second  switch  near 
the  horse's  right  ear,  and  on  turning  it,  I  began  slowly  to  sink  toward 
the  earth.  I  was  forced  to  trust  to  chance,  content  to  abide  by  what- 
ever my  destiny  had  in  store  for  me,  and  it  was  just  midnight  when 
finally  I  found  myself  landed  safely  on  firm  ground.    I  soon  dis- 


The  Dawn  of  Airships  in  Ancient  India  57 

covered  that  I  was  in  the  midst  of  a  forest,  and  passed  the  remaining 
hours  of  the  night  among  the  branches  of  a  tree.  I  thank  the  tree  for 
having  afforded  me  the  means  of  discovering  this  palace,  and  still 
more,  of  discovering  you." 

Finally  the  king  escaped  with  the  princess,  mounting  the  magic 
horse  and  seating  the  princess  on  a  pillion  behind  him,  and  when  she 
was  firmly  seated  with  her  hands  holding  tightly  to  his  belt,  he 
touched  the  button,  and  the  horse  began  to  ascend  heavenward  like 
a  rocket.  They  raced  through  the  atmosphere  like  a  flash  of  lightning, 
and  the  king,  now  an  experienced  air-pilot,  guided  his  horse  so  skil- 
fully that  in  a  few  hours  the  temples  and  towers  of  Ujjain  appeared 
beneath  the  horse's  feet.  They  alighted  outside  the  city  gate  and 
walked  to  the  royal  palace. 


FROM  BABYLON  AND  PERSIA  TO  THE 
GREEKS  AND  THE  ARABS 

The  earliest  traditions  of  the  Euphrates  Valley  carry  us  back  to  a 
mythical  age  in  which  rulers  are  pictured  as  deities  or  of  divine  de- 
scent. Among  these  is  the  legendary  sovereign,  Etana,  a  shepherd, 
who  is  the  hero  of  various  tales  of  which  large  fragments,  though  not 
all,  have  been  recovered.  This  is  not  the  place  for  a  discussion  of  the 
entire  myth.  An  eagle  has  a  struggle  with  a  serpent  who  badly  tears 
his  wings  and  feathers,  and  leaves  him  in  a  mountain-pit  to  die. 
The  eagle  appeals  to  Etana  to  release  him  from  his  prison,  and  as  a 
reward  promises  to  fly  with  Etana  to  the  dwelling  of  the  gods.  Etana 
mounts  on  the  back  of  the  eagle,  and  together  they  fly  upward. 
They  reach  the  heaven  of  Anu  and  halt  at  the  gate  of  the  ecliptic. 
At  this  point  there  is  a  gap  in  the  narrative,  and  when  the  thread  is 
taken  up,  the  eagle  urges  Etana  to  continue  the  journey  in  order  to 
reach  the  place  where  Ishtar  (the  planet  Venus)  dwells.  As  in  the 
case  of  the  first  flight,  a  distance  of  three  kasbu  or  six  hours  is  covered. 
Whether  at  this  point  the  eagle's  strength  becomes  exhausted  or 
whether  the  goddess  herself  intervenes,  the  precipitous  descent  be- 
gins. The  eagle  drops  through  the  space  of  three  double  hours  and 
reaches  the  ground.  The  close  of  the  story  is  wanting,  but  clearly 
the  purpose  of  the  flight  has  failed. 

It  seems  that  there  is  no  other  myth  relating  to  a  flight  preserved 
in  cuneiform  literature,  and  G.  Hiising  is  probably  right  in  evaluating 
the  Etana  myth,  together  with  many  others  preserved  in  Babylonian 
records,  as  non-Babylonian  and  hailing  from  the  Caucasus  region. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  the  Etana  myth  is  Aryan,  not  Semitic,  and  may 
also  be  derived  from  Iran. 

A  Babylonian  seal  cylinder,  which  is  preserved  in  the  Berlin  Mu- 
seum, represents  the  story  of  Etana,  the  flyer.  He  is  shown  being 
carried  on  an  eagle's  back,  soaring  between  heaven  and  earth.  The 
crescent  of  the  moon  is  to  his  left,  the  sun  to  his  right.  A  man  stand- 
ing on  the  ground  looks  up  at  the  strange  spectacle  in  amazement, 
and  two  dogs  bark  at  the  flying  pair.  On  the  left  side  of  the  seal 
impression  appears  a  flock  of  sheep  in  a  fold,  guarded  by  a  shepherd — 
obviously  the  herd  belonging  to  Etana.  The  British  Museum  owns 
another  seal  illustrating  the  same  subject:  here  Etana  is  seated  on  the 
eagle,  who  is  bearing  his  burden  aloft  in  the  sight  of  an  admiring  and 
upward-gazing  dog.    See,  further,  note  on  p.  91. 

58 


From  Babylon  and  Persia  to  the  Greeks  and  the  Arabs  59 

An  ancient  Persian  tradition  is  of  especial  interest,  as  it  was 
transmitted  to  Europe  at  an  early  date  and  exerted  no  small  influence 
on  those  occupied  with  dreams  of  aviation.  This  story  forms  a 
chapter  of  its  own,  and  its  fate  will  be  traced  down  to  recent  times. 

In  the  ancient  semi-legendary  history  of  Iran,  Kavi  Usan  (in 
Persian :  Kai  Kawus)  is  the  second  king  of  the  dynasty  of  the  Kaia- 
nians.  He  was  not  a  wise  ruler,  but  was  a  rather  imperfect  character, 
easily  led  astray  by  passion.  He  ascended  Mount  Alburz,  where  he 
built  seven  palaces,  one  of  gold,  two  of  silver,  two  of  steel,  and  two  of 
rock-crystal.  He  then  endeavored  to  restrain  the  demons  of  Mazan- 
daran.  One  of  these  evil  spirits  retaliated  by  a  ruse  and  sowed  in  his 
heart  the  seeds  of  discontent  with  his  sovereignty  on  earth,  so  that  he 
set  his  mind  on  aiming  at  the  supremacy  of  the  celestial  abode. 
Yielding  to  the  temptation  of  the  Evil  One,  he  seated  himself  on  a 
throne  which  was  supported  and  raised  by  four  eagles,  and  as  an 
incentive  to  fly  up  four  pieces  of  flesh  were  fastened  to  the  top  of  four 
spears  planted  on  the  sides  of  the  throne.  In  this  manner  he  sought 
to  be  transported  into  the  empyrean;  but  the  flight  was  of  brief  dura- 
tion: the  strange  vehicle  soon  came  down  in  a  crash,  and  the  grandees 
found  the  king  unconscious  in  a  forest. 

In  his  great  epic  poem,  the  Shahnameh  ("Book  of  Kings"),  Fir- 
dausi  (935-1025)  describes  this  event  as  follows  (in  the  translation  of 
Warner) : — 

The  Shah  mused  how  to  roam  the  air  though  wingless, 

And  often  asked  the  wise,  "How  far  is  it 

From  earth  to  moon?"   The  astrologers  replied. 

He  chose  a  futile  and  perverse  device: 

He  bade  men  scale  the  aeries  while  the  eagles 

Were  sleeping,  take  a  number  of  the  young, 

And  keep  a  bird  or  two  in  every  home. 

He  had  those  eaglets  fed  a  year  and  more 

With  fowl,  kabab,  and  at  some  whiles  with  lamb. 

When  they  were  strong  as  lions  and  could  each 

Bear  off  a  mountain-sheep,  he  made  a  throne 

Of  aloe  from  Komor  (Khmer)  with  seats  of  gold. 

He  bound  a  lengthy  spear  at  every  corner, 

Suspended  a  lamb's  leg  from  every  spear-head, 

Brought  four  strong  eagles,  tied  them  to  the  throne, 

And  took  his  seat,  a  cup  of  wine  before  him. 

The  swift-winged  eagles,  ravenous  for  food, 

Strove  lustily  to  reach  the  flesh,  and  raising 

The  throne  above  earth's  surface  bore  it  cloudward. 

Kawus,  as  I  have  heard,  essayed  the  sky 

To  outsoar  angels,  but  another  tale 

Is  that  he  rose  in  this  way  to  assail 

The  heaven  itself  with  his  artillery. 

The  legend  hath  its  other  versions  too; 

None  but  the  All-wise  wotteth  which  is  true. 

Long  flew  the  eagles,  but  they  stopped  at  last, 


60  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

Like  other  slaves  of  greed.  They  sulked  exhausted, 

They  dropped  their  sweating  wings  and  brought  the  Shah, 

His  spears  and  throne  down  from  the  clouds  to  earth, 

Alighting  in  a  forest  near  Amul. 

The  world  preserved  him  by  a  miracle, 

But  hid  its  secret  purposes  therein. 

Instead  of  sitting  on  his  throne  in  might 

His  business  then  was  penitence  and  travail. 

He  tarried  in  the  wood  in  shame  and  grief, 

Imploring  from  Almighty  God  relief. 

An  illustrated  Persian  manuscript  of  the  Shahnameh,  dated  1587- 
88,  which  is  preserved  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  New 
York,  vividly  depicts  this  aerial  flight  (Plate  XI).  The  ambitious 
Shah  clad  in  a  pink  robe,  with  feathered  turban,  is  seated  on  a  green 
mat  spread  on  the  bottom  of  a  yellow  hexagonal  couch,  holding  a 
bow  in  his  left  hand  and  an  arrow  in  his  right,  a  fully  laden  quiver 
resting  in  front  of  him.  He  is  ready  for  an  attack  from  the  air  at  any 
price  against  any  enemy  who  might  dare  oppose  his  will.  Four  black 
eagles,  on  the  wing,  are  harnessed  to  the  sides  of  the  throne,  eagerly 
looking  up  and  striving  toward  the  flesh  tied  to  four  spears  with 
fluttering  red  flags.  The  flyers  are  soaring  in  yellow  and  black  clouds 
set  off  from  the  blue  ether,  leaving  beneath  them  the  highest  moun- 
tain top  from  which  a  goat  and  another  animal  gaze  at  them  in 
bewilderment. 

This  Iranian  motif  of  an  aerial  conveyance  lifted  by  starved 
eagles,  like  many  other  Oriental  motifs,  was  adopted  by  the  Greek 
Romance  of  Alexander  the  Great,  which  during  the  middle  ages  was 
translated  into  most  European  languages  and  thus  became  widely 
known.  I  quote  from  Dunlop's  classical  book  "History  of  Fiction." 
Having  reached  the  extremity  of  the  world,  having  received  homage 
from  all  nations  who  inhabit  its  surface,  and  being  assured  that  there 
remained  nothing  more  to  conquer,  Alexander  formed  the  inconsid- 
erate project  of  becoming  sovereign  of  the  air  and  deep.  By  the 
conjurations  of  the  eastern  professors  of  magic,  whom  ne  consulted, 
he  was  furnished  with  a  glass  cage  of  enormous  dimensions,  yoked 
with  eight  griffins  well  matched.  Having  seated  himself  in  this  con- 
veyance, he  posted  through  the  empire  of  the  air,  accompanied  by 
magicians,  who  understood  the  language  of  birds,  and  asked  of  the 
most  intelligent  natives  the  proper  questions  concerning  their  laws, 
manners,  and  customs,  while  Alexander  received  their  voluntary  sub- 
missions. So  far  Dunlop.  The  common  version  of  the  story  is  that 
the  birds  of  prey  were  first  starved  for  three  days  and  then  put  to  a 
carriage,  while  a  horse-liver  was  stuck  on  a  spit  in  front  of  them. 
Greedy  for  the  flesh,  the  birds  drew  the  vehicle  and  in  it  Alexander  up 


From  Babylon  and  Persia  to  the  Greeks  and  the  Arabs  61 

into  the  air  until  a  bird  with  human  face  met  him  and  bade  him  return 
to  earth.  Dunlop  has  justly  remarked,  "This  aerial  journey,  like 
most  of  the  fictions  concerning  Alexander,  is  of  eastern  origin.  An 
old  Arabian  writer,  in  a  book  called  Malem,  informs  us  that  Nimrod 
being  frustrated  in  his  attempt  to  build  the  tower  of  Babel,  insisted 
on  being  carried  through  the  air  in  a  cage  borne  by  four  monstrous 
birds."  Mediaeval  miniatures  illustrating  this  air  voyage  show  Alex- 
ander with  full  regalia  seated  in  a  palanquin  impelled  by  sixteen 
gryphons. 

Francis  Godwin  (1562-1633),  bishop  of  Hereford,  wrote  a  ro- 
mance entitled  "  The  Man  in  the  Moone,  or  a  Discourse  of  a  Voyage 
Thither  by  Domingo  Gonsales  the  Speedy  Messenger,"  first  pub- 
lished in  1638  after  his  death.  In  this  story  Gonsales,  on  account  of 
sickness  during  a  voyage,  is  abandoned  on  the  then  uninhabited 
island  St.  Helena,  and  passes  his  time  by  training  a  number  of  wild 
swans  to  obey  his  call  and  gradually  to  carry  small  burdens  while 
flying.  He  conceived  the  idea  of  harnessing  several  birds  together 
and  devised  a  mechanism  whereby  the  difficulty  of  distributing  the 
weight  equally  at  the  start  of  the  flight  might  be  overcome.  With 
a  team  of  seven  birds  Gonsales  experimented  on  a  lamb,  and  by  in- 
creasing their  number  to  about  twenty-five,  he  was  himself  carried 
aloft  to  his  great  satisfaction.  "For  I  hold  it  far  more  honor,"  he 
says,  "to  have  been  the  first  flying  man  than  to  be  another  Neptune 
that  first  adventured  to  sail  upon  the  sea."  On  his  return  to  Spain 
Gonsales  was  saved  from  shipwreck  by  his  birds,  who  subsequently 
flew  with  him  to  the  moon — a  journey  which  lasted  eleven  days.  He 
finally  learned  that  the  birds  he  had  trained  were  not  really  denizens 
of  St.  Helena,  but  of  the  moon.  "The  Man  in  the  Moone"  had  a 
considerable  influence  on  literature.  Swift  is  said  to  have  derived 
from  it  the  idea  of  the  flying  island  in  Gulliver's  Travels  (1727). 
Several  features  of  Godwin's  romance  were  borrowed  by  Capt.  Sam- 
uel Brunt  in  his  "A  Voyage  to  Cacklogallinia,"  which  recounts  ad- 
ventures among  a  nation  of  bird-men  and  a  voyage  to  the  moon. 
The  frontispiece  to  this  book  shows  the  voyager  conveyed  through 
the  air  on  a  palanquin  supported  by  four  large  birds — the  same  con- 
ception as  found  in  the  Shahnameh  (Plate  XII). 

Hodgson  adds  the  following  interesting  comment  to  Godwin's 
romance:  "Godwin's  name  is  now  seldom  remembered  save  by 
scholars . .  ,  but  his  name  deserves  to  be  kept  in  remembrance  in 
aeronautical  history.  For  though  flight  had  been  an  aspiration  and 
an  object  of  achievement  long  before  Godwin's  time,  the  idea  that 


62  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

'the  first  flying  man'  would  be  greatly  deserving  of  honor,  finds  its 
earliest  expression  in  the  sentiments  above  quoted.  Moreover,  that 
ingenious  pioneer  of  flight,  Domingo  Gonsales,  though  an  imaginary 
creation,  is  inspired  with  an  admirable  spirit  of  enthusiasm  for  aerial 
adventure  of  a  kind  that  has  since  inspired  a  countless  succession 
of  real  pioneers  in  aeronautical  endeavor.  To  suggest  that  Godwin's 
book  created  that  spirit  would  be  to  press  the  point  unduly — the 
motif  of  a  first  success  has  ever  been  a  strong  one,  and  one  which 
usually  predicates  the  impulse  of  enthusiasm." 

In  April,  1786  M.  Uncles  announced  that  he  was  constructing  a 
balloon  to  be  drawn  by  "four  harnessed  eagles,  perfectly  tame,  and 
capable  of  flying  in  every  direction  at  their  master's  will."  In  May  he 
disclosed  that  nothing  prevented  an  ascent  save  the  unsettled 
weather,  the  birds  being  "well-practiced."  The  trial  was  deferred, 
however,  until  August  when  the  eagles  were  ready  on  the  ground  at 
Ranelagh,  the  inflation  proved  a  fiasco,  and  the  balloon  did  not 
rise  from  even  the  ground. 

In  July,  1835  Thomas  Simmons  Mackintosh  proposed  a  scheme 
by  which  balloons  may  be  conducted  in  moderate  weather  with  safety 
by  having  a  sufficient  number  of  larger  birds,  such  as  hawks — eagles 
would  do  better  if  they  could  be  tamed,  but  perhaps  strong  pigeons 
would  do  very  well, — and  let  them  be  harnessed  to  the  balloon  to  draw 
it  along.  In  a  "sketch  of  an  aerial  ship"  Mackintosh  shows  his  bal- 
loon formed  like  the  hull  of  a  ship  with  an  additional  frame-work 
keel  on  either  side  of  which  are  "harnessed"  eight  eagles,  immediately 
controlled  or  "driven"  by  the  aeronauts  seated  in  a  small  car  between 
the  two  keels.  A  colored  reproduction  of  this  airship  is  contained  in 
Hodgson's  book  (Fig.  113). 

J.  Kaiserer  published  in  1801  at  Vienna  a  pamphlet  on  his  inven- 
tion to  direct  an  air  balloon  through  eagles  ("Ueber  meine  Erfindung 
einen  Luftballon  durch  Adler  zu  regieren").  A  plate  depicts  the 
inventor  in  his  balloon  driving  (as  it  were)  a  pair  of  harnessed  eagles. 
The  same  idea  was  revived  in  France  in  1845,  and  as  it  has  been 
demonstrated,  this  idea  has  its  root  in  an  ancient  Persian  tradition 
transmitted  to  Europe  through  the  medium  of  the  Romance  of  Alex- 
ander the  Great. 

Daedalus  ("Cunning  Worker")  was  an  ingenious  craftsman  of  an 
inventive  turn  of  mind;  he  is  the  representative  of  the  mechanical 
arts  of  the  later  Minoan  age.  While  in  the  service  of  Minus,  king  of 
Crete,  he  built  the  labyrinth  for  the  confinement  of  the  Minotaur,  but 


From  Babylon  and  Persia  to  the  Greeks  and  the  Arabs  63 

incurred  the  king's  wrath;  and  to  escape  imprisonment,  he  fashioned 
a  pair  of  artificial  wings  coated  with  wax  for  himself  and  his  son 
Icarus.  Thus  they  fled  and  flew  westward  across  the  sea.  The  father 
enjoined  his  son  not  to  fly  too  low  lest  the  wings  dip  in  the  brine  and 
the  wax  which  held  them  together  be  softened,  nor  too  high,  lest  the 
heat  of  the  sun  melt  the  wax.  Icarus  disregarded  the  paternal  ad- 
monition, came  too  near  the  sun  in  his  lofty  flight,  the  wax  which 
fastened  the  wings  to  his  shoulders  melted,  and  he  fell  headlong  into 
the  sea  which  is  still  named  for  him  the  Icarian  Sea.  The  more  cau- 
tious Daedalus  landed  safely  on  Sicily.  Of  all  flying  stories  of  classical 
antiquity  it  is  this  one  which  has  left  a  lasting  impression  on  future 
generations  and  fired  the  ambition  of  many  imitators;  and  it  is  on 
this  point,  its  moral  effect,  that  the  importance  of  the  story  rests. 
Daedalus  was  an  historical  personage,  a  many-sided  artisan  who 
surely  made  some  attempts  to  fly.  Like  many  others  of  his  type  he 
was  not  understood  or  even  was  misunderstood  by  his  contem- 
poraries, and  his  story  has  been  handed  down  in  the  form  of  poetic 
romance  and  exaggerated  legend. 

And  what,  after  all,  is  the  difference  whether  the  Daedalus  story 
is  true  or  not?  It  is  not  the  gray,  cold,  naked  objective  truth  that 
counts  in  the  history  of  mankind  and  will  advance  the  cause  of  civili- 
zation, but  it  is  the  flight  of  human  imagination,  the  impulses  and 
visions  of  a  genius,  very  often  his  errors  and  miscalculations,  which 
have  stimulated  inventions  and  progress.  Ever  since  Daedalus'  al- 
leged or  real  flight  men  in  Europe  have  tried  and  died  until  finally 
success  was  insured. 

Daedalus'  adventure  finds  an  echo  in  the  Germanic  saga  of  Way- 
land  the  Smith  (Anglo-Saxon  Weland,  Old  Scandinavian  Volundr), 
the  artificer  of  marvelous  weapons  extolled  in  Icelandic,  English, 
French,  and  German  poetry.  King  Nidung  endeavored  to  keep  him 
in  his  service  by  cutting  the  sinews  of  his  feet  and  thus  laming  him 
forever.  Wayland  forged  a  feather  robe  and,  flying  up  to  the  highest 
tower  of  the  royal  castle,  revealed  his  purpose  to  the  king,  and  flew 
off  to  his  home  on  Seeland.  Wayland  is  represented  on  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  box  of  walrus  bone  of  the  eighth  century,  covered  with  Runic 
inscriptions;  in  this  carving,  his  brother,  Egil,  is  engaged  in  capturing 
birds  from  whose  skins  the  clever  smith  will  prepare  his  feather- 
shirt. 

To  mention  all  the  winged  gods  of  Greece  and  their  flights  through 
space  would  mean  to  pass  in  review  a  substantial  portion  of  Greek 
mythology  which  is  a  subject  of  common  knowledge.   Suffice  it  to 


64  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

refer  to  Hermes  or  Mercury,  the  messenger  and  herald  of  the  gods, 
of  supernatural  swiftness,  often  represented  with  winged  shoes  and 
cap;  and  to  Perseus,  who  received  from  the  nymphs  a  pair  of  winged 
sandals,  a  pouch,  and  the  cap  of  Hades  which  rendered  the  wearer 
invisible. 

On  the  Greek  stage  theatrical  machines  (meckane,  geranos)  were 
used  to  convey  the  illusion  of  persons  descending  from  the  air  or  being 
lifted  upward ;  for  instance,  in  Aeschylus'  Fettered  Prometheus,  where 
the  choir  descends  on  a  winged  chariot  and  where  the  god  Okeanos 
arrives  on  a  fantastic  conveyance. 

Archytas  was  a  Greek  who  lived  at  Tarentum  in  southern  Italy 
(about  428-347  B.C.).  He  was  a  philosopher  of  the  Pythagorean 
school,  mathematician,  statesman,  and  general.  Numerous  fragments 
and  titles  of  works  are  ascribed  to  him,  but  the  authenticity  of  some 
is  doubted.  He  attained  great  skill  as  a  practical  mechanician,  and 
his  flying  dove  of  wood  was  one  of  the  wonders  of  antiquity.  He  lost 
his  life  drowning  on  a  voyage  in  the  Adriatic.  What  his  flying  dove 
was  is  not  clear  from  the  few  succinct  and  unsatisfactory  accounts  we 
have.  It  is  described  as  having  consisted  of  a  wooden  figure  balanced 
by  a  weight  that  was  suspended  from  a  pulley;  it  is  said  to  have 
soared  in  the  air  and  to  have  been  set  in  motion  by  a  current  of  air 
"hidden  and  enclosed"  in  its  interior,  or  by  compressed  air  escaping 
from  a  valve.  Some  scholars  incline  to  the  opinion  that  it  was  an 
anticipation  of  the  hot-air  balloon;  others  think  that  it  was  an  aero- 
stat or  glider,  as  it  is  said  it  could  fly,  but  not  rise  again  after  falling. 
It  may  also  have  been  on  the  order  of  Lu  Pan's  wooden  kite  (p.  23), 
but  assuredly  it  was  not  a  paper  kite,  as  sometimes  assumed. 

Reference  has  been  made  to  the  Indian  traditions  of  Greek  air- 
ships (p.  51),  but  thus  far  no  confirmation  of  such  flying-machines  has 
been  found  in  Greek  sources. 

It  will  not  be  amiss  to  cast  a  glance  at  the  writings  of  Lucian,  that 
delightful  satirist  and  divine  liar  of  the  second  century  of  our  era,  as 
his  imageries  of  air  voyages  have  inspired  such  eminent  authors  as 
Rabelais,  Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  and  Swift.  In  his  "Icaromenippus  or 
the  Journey  above  the  Clouds"  Lucian  introduces  the  flyer  Menippus 
as  a  persiflage  of  Daedalus,  who  goes  one  better  than  his  predecessor 
by  refraining  from  the  use  of  wax.  He  took  an  eagle  and  a  vulture  of 
the  largest  kind,  clipped  their  wings  off  together  -vith  the  shoulders, 
and  fastened  to  himself  the  eagle's  right  wing  and  the  vulture's  left 
wing  by  means  of  strong  leather  straps,  to  the  ends  of  which  two 
handles  were  attached  as  a  grip  for  his  hands.   Thus  he  essayed  to 


From  Babylon  and  Persia  to  the  Greeks  and  the  Arabs  65 

fly,  first  timidly,  leaping  with  a  movement  of  his  hands  and,  as  geese 
do,  keeping  close  to  the  ground  on  tiptoe  and  flapping  his  wings. 
Seeing  that  he  succeeded,  he  attempted  a  bolder  stunt,  ascended  the 
citadel,  plunged  downward,  and  flew  to  the  theatre  without  a  mishap. 
After  several  minor  trials  and  exercises  he  scaled  the  Olympus,  and 
carrying  a  supply  of  victuals  as  light  as  possible,  started  his  flight 
skyward,  crossed  the  clouds,  and  reached  the  moon. 

In  another  work  known  as  The  True  History,  Lucian  relates  how, 
prompted  by  curiosity,  he  sailed  from  the  pillars  of  Hercules  and 
launched  into  the  western  ocean.  A  whirlwind  carried  him  with  his 
mariners  toward  a  resplendent  island  which  turned  out  to  be  the 
moon.  There  they  were  met  by  a  curious  class  of  creatures  who  styled 
themselves  Hippogypes  ("Horse-vultures"), — men  riding  on  huge 
vultures  which  they  rode  like  horses.  These  vultures  were  of  enor- 
mous size,  almost  all  of  them  provided  with  three  heads;  each  of  their 
feathers  was  longer  and  thicker  than  the  mast  of  a  large  transport- 
vessel.  The  Hippogypes  had  the  duty  of  encircling  the  island  and 
conducting  any  stranger  they  encountered  to  the  court  of  the  king. 
This  was  Endymion,  king  of  the  moon,  who  at  that  time  was  engaged 
in  a  war  with  Phaeton,  king  of  the  sun.  Lucian  and  his  crew  were 
graciously  received  by  his  lunar  majesty,  who  requested  their  cooper- 
ation in  the  ensuing  campaign,  and  as  an  inducement  offered  to 
furnish  each  with  one  of  his  royal  vultures  and  the  equipment  per- 
taining to  it. 

The  importance  of  Lucian's  work  rests  on  the  fact  that  it  gave  the 
impetus  in  France  to  a  class  of  fiction  known  as  "voyages  imaginaires" 
in  which  are  recounted  imaginary  excursions  to  the  planets  or  moon, 
like  Cyrano  de  Bergerac's  adventurous  journey  to  the  lunar  world. 
Following  Godwin's  example  (p.  61),  Cyrano  deBergerac  (1620-55) 
wrote  the  "Histoire  comique  de  la  lune  et  du  soleil,"  relating  aerial 
journeys  to  the  lunar  and  solar  worlds,  wherein  flight  is  achieved  by 
such  chimerical  contrivances  as  the  ascensive  power  of  the  dew  when 
contained  in  glass  balls  and  subjected  to  the  sun's  rays  (an  idea  pro- 
bably borrowed  from  Francesco  Lana,  see  p.  21), or  the  use  of  a  "very 
light  machine  of  iron"  drawn  upward  through  the  atmosphere  by  the 
attractive  power  of  the  loadstone. 


The  Arabs,  the  heirs  of  Greek  philosophy  and  science,  were  clever 
mechanicians,  and  independently  made  considerable  progress  in 
mechanical  devices.  They  were,  as  Washington  Irving  characterizes 


66  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

them,  a  quick-witted,  sagacious,  proud-spirited,  and  poetical  people, 
and  were  imbued  with  Oriental  science  and  literature.  Wherever  they 
established  a  seat  of  power,  it  became  the  rallying-place  for  the 
learned  and  ingenious. 

About  the  year  875  of  our  era  an  Arabic  mechanician  of  Spain, 
Abu'l  Qasim  Abbas  Ibn  Firnas,  called  the  Sage  of  Spain,  devised  a 
contrivance  to  make  his  body  rise  into  the  air;  he  made  a  pair  of 
wings,  clothed  himself  with  feathers,  and  flew  quite  a  distance 
through  the  air,  but,  as  he  had  not  taken  into  consideration  what 
would  happen  during  his  descent,  he  fell  and  injured  his  buttocks. 
He  was  ignorant  of  the  fact,  the  Arabic  chronicler  adds,  that  a  bird 
falls  only  on  his  rump,  and  had  forgotten  to  make  a  tail  for  himself. 
This  man  was  the  first  who  manufactured  glass  in  Spain  and  who 
constructed  clepsydras.  In  his  house  he  made  a  model  of  the  heavens 
in  which  he  showed  the  stars,  clouds,  lightning  and  thunder.  It  is 
therefore  credible  that  a  man  of  his  mechanical  ability  was  led  to 
make  attempts  at  flying. 

The  story  of  a  flying  architect  is  handed  down  by  Ibn  al-Faqih,  an 
Arabic  geographer,  who  lived  in  the  tenth  century.  He  erected  in 
Hamadan,  Persia,  a  huge  tower  for  King  Shapur  I,  son  of  the  founder 
of  the  Sasanian  dynasty  of  Persia.  The  jealous  king  decided  to  leave 
the  master-builder  on  the  top  of  the  tower,  as  he  did  not  want  any 
one  else  to  profit  by  his  genius.  The  architect  consented,  but  asked 
one  favor  of  the  king;  he  was  permitted  to  erect  a  wooden  hut  on  the 
tower  to  protect  his  corpse  from  the  attack  of  vultures.  The  king 
granted  the  request  and  ordered  to  supply  him  with  as  much  timber 
as  he  needed.  Then  the  architect  was  abandoned  to  his  fate.  He 
took  up  his  tools,  made  a  pair  of  wings  from  the  wood  left  with  him, 
and  fastened  them  to  his  body.  Driven  by  the  wind  he  rose  into  the 
air  and  landed  unscathed  at  a  safe  place,  where  he  kept  in  hiding. 
This  tradition  exhibits  a  striking  affinity  with  the  Daedalus  story. 
The  same  Arabic  author,  in  describing  the  scenes  represented  in  the 
chamber  of  Perwiz  near  Behistun,  mentions  the  figure  of  Fattus,  a 
celebrated  Arabic  architect,  outfitted  with  the  wings  of  a  bird, — 
presumably  an  emblem  of  architecture  and  sculpture. 

Under  the  emperor  Manuel  Comnenus  a  Saracen  tried  to  show 
his  skill  in  flying  before  a  large  audience  at  Constantinople.  An  eye- 
witness relates  the  story  as  follows:  "It  was  on  the  occasion  of  the 
festivities  held  in  honor  of  a  Sultan  of  the  Seljuks,  who  had  come  on 
a  visit.  The  Saracen  clambered  a  tower  of  the  hippodrome  where  the 
horse-races  were  held,  and  announced  that  he  would  fly  across  the 


From  Babylon  and  Persia  to  the  Greeks  and  the  Arabs  67 

race-course.  There  he  stood  on  the  tower,  clad  in  a  very  long  and 
wide  garment  of  white  color  braced  with  rods  of  willow-wood  laid 
over  a  frame- work.  The  cloth  was  loosely  draped  over  this  frame, 
and  he  intended  to  fly  like  a  ship  with  its  sail,  hoping  that  the  wind 
would  catch  in  the  folds  of  his  garment.  All  eyes  were  intently  fixed 
upon  him,  and  the  onlookers,  enjoying  the  spectacle,  kept  on  shout- 
ing, 'Fly,  fly!'  and  'How  long  will  you  put  us  off,  Saracen,  and  esti- 
mate the  wind  from  the  tower?'  The  emperor  sent  a  messenger  over 
to  detain  him  from  the  adventure.  The  Sultan,  who  was  among  the 
spectators,  was  filled  with  fear  and  hope,  and  worried  about  his  com- 
patriot. He,  however,  remained  undisturbed,  frequently  examined 
the  wind,  and  put  the  audience  off.  He  often  raised  his  arms,  used 
them  like  wings,  and  lowered  them  to  catch  the  wind.  When  the 
wind  appeared  to  him  favorable,  he  soared  like  a  bird  and  seemed  to 
fly  in  the  air." 

Oliver  (also  Eilmer  or  Elmer)  of  Malmesbury,  an  English  astro- 
loger and  mechanician,  who  lived  early  in  the  eleventh  century,  is 
said  to  have  fitted  wings  to  his  hands  and  feet  and  to  have  attempted 
to  fly  off  from  a  tower  with  the  help  of  the  wind.  He  fell  and  broke 
his  legs,  and  attributed  his  failure  to  the  lack  of  a  tail.  Milton,  in  his 
"History  of  Britain"  (1670),  thus  relates  the  story  of  the  attempted 
flight:  "He  in  his  youth  strangely  aspiring,  had  made  and  fitted  wings 
to  his  hands  and  feet;  with  these  on  the  top  of  a  tower,  spread  out  to 
gather  air,  he  flew  more  than  a  furlong;  but  the  wind  being  too  high, 
came  fluttering  down,  to  the  maiming  of  all  his  limbs;  yet  so  conceited 
of  his  art,  that  he  attributed  the  cause  of  his  fall  to  the  want  of  a  tail, 
as  birds  have,  which  he  forgot  to  make  to  his  hinder  parts."  Hodgson 
regards  this  story  as  legendary.  Be  this  as  it  may,  it  bears  such  a  strik- 
ing resemblance  to  the  Arabic  accounts  of  flying  aforementioned  that 
a  connection  between  the  two  must  inevitably  be  assumed:  either 
Oliver  made  his  attempt  in  imitation  of  the  Arab  of  whose  experiment 
he  had  heard  or  read,  or  the  story  itself  is  patterned  after  the  Arabic 
model. 

Giovanni  Battista  Danti,  a  mathematician  of  Perugia,  is  said  to 
have  attempted  about  1490  winged  flights  over  the  lake  of  Trasimeno 
in  Umbria. 

A  similar  adventure  is  ascribed  to  John  Damian,  abbot  of  Tung- 
land,  an  Italian  by  birth,  who  came  to  Edinburgh  from  France  in 
1501  and  became  the  favorite  of  King  James  IV,  residing  at  the 
Scottish  court  in  the  capacity  of  physician  to  the  king's  household. 
In  the  autumn  of  1507  when  an  embassy  had  been  sent  to  France, 


68  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

Damian  averred  he  could  overtake  it  by  flying  and  to  arrive  in  France 
before  the  ambassadors.  He  made  from  bird-feathers  a  pair  of  wings 
which  he  fastened  on  to  himself,  and  hopped  off  from  the  top  of 
Stirling  Castle,  but  shortly  fell  to  the  ground  and  broke  his  legs.  This 
failure  he  attributed  to  the  fact  that  some  hen  feathers  were  contained 
in  his  wings  and  showed  a  natural  affinity  to  return  to  the  barnyard 
instead  of  maintaining  flight  skyward.  John  Lesley,  bishop  of  Ross, 
who  records  this  story  in  his  "History  of  Scotland"  (1578),  winds  up 
with  the  remark  that  in  this  adventure  Damian  was  endeavoring  to 
outdo  King  Bladud  (p.  14).  At  any  rate  Damian  was  not  so  wrong 
from  the  standpoint  of  his  time  in  laying  the  blame  for  his  misfortune 
on  the  chicken  feathers.  During  the  middle  ages  it  was  a  wide-spread 
superstition  that  one  could  not  sleep  well  on  a  feather  pillow,  nor 
could  one  easily  die  on  it.  Bird-feathers  were  believed  to  retain  the 
soul,  hence  the  pillow  had  to  be  pulled  away  from  under  a  moribund. 
In  Ireland  the  belief  prevailed  that  when  a  dying  man  suffered  great 
agony,  it  was  due  to  the  presence  of  chicken-feathers  in  his  bed,  and 
his  friends  would  sometimes  lift  him  up  and  place  him  upon  the  floor 
to  relieve  him.  In  Norway  it  was  a  rule  not  to  have  chicken-feathers 
in  one's  pillow,  for  the  chickens  have  a  certain  feather  known  as 
"restless  feather"  on  which  no  one  can  sleep  or  die. 

Roger  Bacon  (1214-94),  the  Franciscan  monk,  one  of  the  few 
great  scholars  of  the  middle  ages,  merits  a  place  in  the  prehistory  (I 
say  advisedly  prehistory,  not  history)  of  aviation,  as  he  points  to  the 
possibility  of  a  flying-machine.  In  his  "Epistola  de  secretis  operibus," 
written  about  1250,  he  affirms  in  the  chapter  "Of  Admirable  Artificial 
Instruments,"  "Likewise  flying-machines  con  be  made  in  such  a  way 
that  a  man  is  seated  in  the  midst  of  the  machine,  revolving  some  sort 
of  device  by  means  of  which  wings  artificially  composed  may  beat 
the  air  after  the  fashion  of  a  flying  bird."  The  Latin  original  is  as 
follows:  "Item  possunt  fieri  instrumenta  volandi,  ut  homo  sedeat  in 
medio  instrumenti  revolvens  aliquod  ingenium,  per  quod  alae  artifi- 
cialiter  compositae  aerem  verberent  ad  modum  avis  volantis."  Dis- 
cussing other  mechanical  devices,  Bacon  continues  that  "all  these 
were  made  in  ancient  times  and  have  also  been  made  in  our  times,  as 
it  is  certain,  with  the  sole  exception  of  the  flying-machine  which  I 
have  not  seen,  nor  do  I  know  any  one  who  has  seen  it,  but  I  know  an 
expert  who  has  thought  out  the  way  to  make  one"  (Haec  autem  facta 
sunt  antiquitus,  et  nostris  temporibus  facta  sunt,  ut  certum  est,  nisi  sit 
instrumentum  volandi,  quod  non  vidi,  nee  hominem  qui  vidisset  cog- 
novi;  sed  sapientem,  qui  hoc  artificium  excogitavit  explere,  cognosco). 


From  Babylon  and  Persia  to  the  Greeks  and  the  Arabs  69 

Roger  Bacon  has  been  greatly  overestimated  in  modern  times, 
until  Professor  Lynn  Thorndike  in  his  "History  of  Magic  and  Experi- 
mental Science  during  the  First  Thirteen  Centuries  of  Our  Era" 
(1923)  has  successfully  refuted  the  exaggerated  and  distorted  estimate 
of  his  importance  and  uniqueness  and  has  presented  the  man  and  his 
work  in  a  critical  and  just  attitude.  In  fact  Bacon  was  as  supersti- 
tious and  credulous  as  the  majority  of  his  contemporaries.  In  the 
chapter  just  cited  he  speaks,  for  instance,  "of  machines  that  can  be 
made  for  walking  in  the  seas  and  rivers,  even  to  the  bottom  without 
danger;  for  Alexander  the  Great  employed  such  that  he  might  see  the 
secrets  of  the  deep."  The  story  of  Alexander  diving  into  the  sea  in  a 
sort  of  submarine  is,  of  course,  not  historical,  but  appears  only  among 
the  fictions  of  the  Alexander  Romance,  which  Bacon  evidently  swal- 
lowed as  historical  truth.  What  his  real  notions  of  flying  were  appears 
from  the  following  passage  inserted  in  the  midst  of  his  discussion  of 
experimental  science  (characterized  by  Thorndike  as  "an  instance  of 
his  gullibility") :  "It  is  certain  that  Ethiopian  sages  have  come  into 
Italy,  Spain,  France,  England,  and  those  Christian  lands  where  there 
are  good  flying  dragons;  and  by  an  occult  art  that  they  possess,  excite 
the  dragons,  and  drive  them  at  top  speed  through  the  air,  in  order  to 
soften  the  rigidity  and  toughness  of  their  flesh,  just  as  boars,  bears, 
and  bulls  are  hunted  with  dogs  and  beaten  with  many  blows  before 
they  are  killed  for  eating.  And  when  they  have  tamed  the  dragons 
in  this  way,  they  have  an  art  of  preparing  their  flesh. .  .which  they 
employ  against  the  accidents  of  age  and  prolong  life  and  inspire  the 
intellect  beyond  all  estimation.  For  no  education  which  man  can  give 
will  bestow  such  wisdom  as  does  the  eating  of  their  flesh,  as  we  have 
learned  without  deceit  or  doubt  from  men  of  proven  trustworthiness." 
This  much  the  Chinese  knew  centuries  before  our  era.  The  preceding 
quotation  shows  that  Bacon's  mind  was  steeped  in  Oriental  lore,  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  his  notions  of  flying  are  traceable  to  this 
source.  In  particular,  the  legend  of  men  who  tame  flying  dragons  by 
their  incantations  and  magic  appears  among  the  thirteenth  century 
additions  to  the  famous  letter  of  Prester  John  in  which  the  marvels  of 
India  and  adjacent  territories  are  recorded,  and  this  must  be  the 
source  of  Bacon's  version. 

We  know  that  Bacon  to  some  extent  was  under  the  influence  of 
Arabic  science.  His  mathematical  ideas  are  based  on  Latin  transla- 
tions of  Arabic  works,  particularly  through  the  medium  of  Witelo,  a 
Polish  scholar,  his  contemporary,  who  studied  the  writings  of  Alhazen 
(Ibn  al-Haitham,  965-1038)  and  Avicenna  (Ibn  Sina,  980-1037). 


70  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

It  is  therefore  an  exaggeration  to  say  with  Hodgson  that  "the 
first  dawn  of  a  rational  idea  of  flight  and  of  a  belief  in  the  possibility 
of  achieving  it  is  revealed  in  the  writings  of  Roger  Bacon,"  or  with 
Brown  that  "with  prophetic  vision  he  saw  the  wonders  that  the  future 
might  hold."  After  quoting  the  above  passage  with  reference  to  a 
flying-machine,  Brown  continues,  "This  single  observation  can  hardly 
justify  us  in  regarding  Roger  Bacon  as  a  student  of  aeronautics,  and 
the  thought  behind  it  was  alien  to  the  thought  of  the  time.  Neverthe- 
less, it  was  a  portent  that  the  mental  attitude  of  the  middle  ages 
would  not  last  for  ever."  On  the  contrary,  the  thought  was  not  at  all 
novel  or  alien  to  his  time,  but  was  merely  the  echo  of  an  ancient  idea 
that  we  have  traced  in  China  and  India  as  well  as  among  the  Persians 
and  Arabs.  Bacon  is  very  far  from  being  the  herald  of  a  new  era  and 
opening  the  historical  period  of  air  navigation;  his  place  is  at  the  end 
of  the  line  of  its  prehistoric  age. 

The  modern  history  of  aviation  begins  with  Leonardo  da  Vinci 
(1452-1519),  who  was  a  true  pioneer  of  science  by  studying  the  flight 
of  birds  and  left  several  sketches  of  aeroplanes  in  his  manuscripts 
which  were  hidden  in  obscurity  for  nearly  three  hundred  years  until 
their  existence  was  revealed  in  1797.  This  subject,  however,  as  well 
as  the  modern  development  of  aircraft  is  beyond  the  scope  of  this 
inquiry. 


THE  AIR  MAIL  OF  ANCIENT  TIMES 

To  one  who  look'd  from  upper  air 

O'er  all  the  enchanted  regions  there, 

How  beauteous  must  have  been  the  glow, 

The  life,  the  sparkling  from  below! 

Fair  gardens,  shining  streams,  with  ranks 

Of  golden  melons  on  their  banks, 

More  golden  where  the  sun-light  falls; — 

Gay  lizards,  glittering  on  the  walls 

Of  ruin'd  shrines,  busy  and  bright 

As  they  were  all  alive  with  light; — 

And,  yet  more  splendid,  numerous  flocks 

Of  pigeons,  settling  on  the  rocks, 

With  their  rich  restless  wings,  that  gleam 

Variously  in  the  crimson  beam 

Of  the  warm  west — as  if  inlaid 

With  brilliants  from  the  mine,  or  made 

Of  tearless  rainbows,  such  as  span 

The  unclouded  skies  of  Peristan! 

Thomas  Moore,  Paradise  and  The  Peri 

Air-mail  service  was  first  established  in  the  United  States  in  the 
year  1918  when  the  New  York- Washington  mail  route  (218  miles) 
was  inaugurated  on  May  15.  A  year  later  the  Cleveland-Chicago 
route  (325  miles)  was  opened.  The  New  York-Cleveland  service 
(430  miles)  followed  on  July  1, 1919.  On  August  16, 1920,  the  Chi- 
cago-St.  Louis  service  (300  miles)  was  inaugurated,  and  on  September 
8  of  the  same  year  New  York  was  connected  by  air  mail  with  San 
Francisco  (2,651  miles). 

While  our  air  mail  is  one  of  the  epoch-making  innovations  and 
achievements  of  modern  times,  there  was  also  a  "prehistoric"  air  mail 
which  is  no  less  admirable — carried  on  the  wings  of  pigeons.  This 
prodigious  institution  we  also  owe  to  the  Orient.  I  propose  to  survey 
it  from  China  and  India  to  Persia  and  the  Near  East  and  to  show 
how  it  was  transmitted  from  there  to  Europe. 

The  first  Chinese  who  has  gone  down  in  history  as  having  made 
use  of  carrier  pigeons  is  Chang  Kiu-ling  (A.D.  673-740),  who  flour- 
ished as  a  statesman  and  poet  under  the  emperor  Ming  Huang  of  the 
T'ang  dynasty.  In  his  youth  he  was  in  the  habit  of  corresponding 
with  his  relatives  by  means  of  a  flock  of  carrier  pigeons  which  he 
trained  in  large  numbers  and  which  he  called  his  "flying  slaves."  Fei 
nu  ("flying  slaves")  is  still  a  designation  of  a  carrier  pigeon.  The 
messages  were  attached  to  the  feet  of  the  birds,  and  they  were  taught 
how  to  deliver  them. 

It  is  singular  that  the  government  organs  of  China  never  saw  this 
opportunity  and  never  availed  themselves  of  pigeons  for  conveying 

71 


72  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

important  messages,  as  it  was  done  by  the  kings  of  India  and  by  the 
Mohammedan  rulers  in  the  Near  East.  The  employment  of  carrier 
pigeons  remained  restricted  to  private  correspondence,  chiefly  for 
commercial  purposes.  They  were  of  great  service  to  merchants  in 
conveying  intelligence  to  the  producing  districts,  or  bringing  news 
of  the  arrivals  of  cargoes  and  the  ruling  prices  of  the  markets.  In  the 
old  days  of  the  Manchu  empire  merchants  of  Hongkong  used  pigeons 
in  sending  news  to  their  business  partners  at  Canton  of  the  arrival 
of  the  English,  French,  or  American  mails.  In  Canton  they  are 
termed  ch'un  shii  kop  ("letter-transmitting  pigeons"). 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  introduction  of  telephones  in  Peking,  carrier 
pigeons  (called  sung  sin,  "letter-carriers")  were  used  to  send  quota- 
tions of  money  exchange  rates  from  the  banks  located  in  the  Chinese 
City  to  those  in  the  Manchu  City. 

The  Chinese  say  that  carrier  pigeons  are  difficult  to  train  and  that 
it  takes  two  or  three  years  before  they  can  be  employed  for  long 
distance  flights,  which  quite  agrees  with  our  own  experiences.  It 
takes  about  three  years  to  determine  the  qualifications  of  a  good 
homing  pigeon  for  a  five-hundred-mile  flight. 

While  the  Chinese  have  never  bred  carrier  pigeons  on  a  large  scale 
or  intensively,  they  have  added  to  the  art  of  pigeon-training  an  at- 
tractive means  of  amusement:  in  the  same  manner  as  they  were  the 
first  who  communed  with  the  air  by  means  of  kites,  they  also  were  the 
first  who  created  "music  on  the  air."  This  was  accomplished  by 
means  of  whistles  extremely  light  in  weight,  attached  to  the  pigeon's 
tail-feathers.  These  whistles  consist  of  two,  three,  or  five  reed  tubes 
of  graded  length  in  the  shape  of  a  Pandean  pipe,  varnished  yellow, 
brown,  or  black;  or  of  a  small  gourd  into  which  reed  pipes  are  in- 
serted. A  collection  of  these  whistles,  some  engraved  with  the  names 
of  the  makers,  is  on  view  in  a  case  illustrating  the  musical  instruments 
of  China  in  the  West  Gallery  of  the  Museum;  there  also  a  mounted 
pigeon  outfitted  with  the  whistle  and  photographs  of  live  pigeons 
thus  equipped  and  taken  in  Peking  may  be  seen.  When  a  flock  of 
pigeons  circles  the  air,  the  wind  strikes  the  apertures  of  the  instru- 
ments which  are  set  vibrating,  and  produce  a  not  unpleasing,  open-air 
concert  whose  charms  are  heightened  by  the  fact  that  the  whistles 
used  in  a  flock  are  tuned  differently.  The  Chinese  explain  that  the 
sounds  of  the  whistles  are  intended  to  keep  the  flocks  together  and  to 
protect  the  birds  from  onslaughts  of  hawks  and  other  birds  of  prey. 
This  rationalistic  interpretation,  however,  is  not  convincing.  It  is 
not  known  and  at  least  doubtful  whether  such  music  makes  an  im- 


The  Air  Mail  of  Ancient  Times  73 

pression  on  either  pigeon  or  hawk,  and  would  it  really  prevent  the 
famished  princes  and  pirates  of  the  air  from  making  a  swoop  at  their 
quarry?  Even  supposed  this  might  happen  once  in  a  while,  we  must 
consider  that  this  music  constantly  fills  the  atmosphere  year  by  year, 
and  the  unrelenting  foes  of  the  pigeon  will  gradually  become  accus- 
tomed to  it  and  treat  it  with  disdain  or  disregard.  It  seems  more 
plausible  that  this  quaint  custom  has  no  rational  origin,  but  that  it 
rather  is  the  outcome  of  purely  emotional  and  artistic  tendencies. 
Psychologically,  the  pigeon  whistles  move  along  the  same  line  as  the 
musical  bows  attached  to  kites.  It  is  not  the  pigeon  that  profits  from 
the  aerial  music,  but  the  human  ear  that  feasts  on  the  wind-blown 
tunes  and  derives  esthetic  enjoyment  from  them. 

The  pigeons  which  fly  about  with  whistles  attached  to  them  are 
termed  "mid-sky  beauties"  (pan  t'ien  kiao  jen). 

In  India  the  use  of  carrier  pigeons  goes  back  to  a  great  antiquity, 
and  may  with  certainty  be  assumed  as  having  been  in  full  swing  in 
the  beginning  of  our  era.  The  Arthacastra,  an  ancient  handbook  of 
polity  and  state  wisdom  written  in  Sanskrit  by  Kautilya,  a  minister 
of  state,  gives  us  the  specific  information  that  the  kings  of  India  re- 
ceived news  about  the  movements  of  hostile  troops  by  air  mail, 
through  domesticated  pigeons  which  brought  them  stamped  and 
sealed  letters. 

In  Indian  stories  various  kinds  of  birds  appear  as  harbingers  of 
messages.  A  white  wild  goose,  for  instance,  who  had  been  with  a 
prince  all  his  life  carries  to  him  a  letter  from  his  parents  into  a  remote 
kingdom,  and  returns  there  with  a  response  from  him  (in  the  legend 
of  Kalyanamkara  and  Papamkara).  Aryadeva  received  an  invitation 
to  come  to  Nalanda  by  a  letter  attached  to  the  neck  of  a  crow  (in 
Taranatha's  History  of  Buddhism  in  India).  Parrots  frequently 
appear  in  the  role  of  winged  messengers. 

Linschoten,  who  travelled  in  India  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
mentions  the  fact  that  he  met  in  India  a  Venitian  who  had  brought 
carrier  pigeons  along  to  try  them  out  and  naturalize  them.  John 
Fryer,  who  travelled  in  the  East  from  1672  to  1681,  notes  in  his 
description  of  Surat  carrier  pigeons  with  blubbered  noses  and  of  a 
brown  color  to  carry  letters.  The  fact  that  Darwin  received  carriers 
from  Madras  would  seem  to  point  to  their  use  in  southern  India. 

As  regards  Persia,  an  interesting  bit  of  evidence  is  preserved  by 
Twan  Ch'eng-shi,  author  of  the  Yu  yang  tsa  tsu  (ninth  century),  to 
the  effect  that  on  the  sea-going  vessels  of  the  Persians  many  pigeons 
were  kept,  capable  of  flying  several  thousand  li  (Chinese  miles) ;  these 


74  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

were  released  and  at  a  single  flight  returned  to  their  homes,  bearing 
as  it  were  the  tidings  that  everything  on  board  was  well. 

Ch'ang  Te,  a  Chinese  traveller,  was  sent  m  1259  by  the  Mongol 
emperor,  Mangu,  as  envoy  to  his  brother  Hulagu,  king  of  Persia. 
He  kept  a  diary  of  his  journey  which  was  edited  in  1263  by  Liu  Yu. 
Speaking  of  the  postal  service  of  Persia  in  his  time  he  mentions  a 
special  kind  of  swift  camel  trained  for  the  service  of  couriers,  as  well 
as  pigeons  which  transmit  news  to  a  distance  of  a  thousand  li  (Chin- 
ese miles)  in  one  day.  In  mediaeval  times  Persian  authors  repeatedly 
refer  to  the  conveyance  of  letters  by  pigeon-mail  in  western  Asia, 
even  in  time  of  war.  In  1262  when  the  Mongols  besieged  the  city  of 
Mosul,  they  caught  a  tired  pigeon  which  was  perching  for  rest  on  one 
of  their  catapults  and  which  carried  a  message  for  the  beleaguered. 
The  letter  was  intercepted,  and  was  found  to  contain  news  of  the 
approach  of  an  army  for  the  relief  of  the  city.  This  enabled  the 
Mongols  in  time  to  throw  an  army  against  the  onmarching  enemy. 

The  pigeon  appears  in  love-songs  of  the  Baluchi,  an  Iranian  tribe 
inhabiting  Afganistan.  One  of  these  love-messages  begins,  "Oh  dove! 
Oh  pigeon,  among  the  birds  be  thou  a  messenger  of  my  state  to  my 
love.  Travel  over  the  long  distance,  I  beg  of  thee,  blue  bird,  fly  from 
the  cliff  where  thou  dwellest  night,  from  the  rugged  rocks  of  the  fowls 
of  the  air,  go  to  my  beloved's  home  and  perch  on  the  right  side  of  her 
bed."  In  another  love-song  it  is  said,  "Oh  pigeon,  peahen  among  the 
birds,  be  a  messenger  of  my  state  to  my  true-love,  to  that  modest 
fair  one."    (M.  L.  Dames,  Popular  Poetry  of  the  Baloches.) 

Pigeons  were  used  by  the  ancients  for  sending  love  messages  (Ana- 
creon  IX,  15;  Martialis  VIII,  32),  news  of  a  victory  in  the  Olympic 
games,  or  letters  into  a  besieged  city.  The  earliest  Greek  allusion  to  a 
carrier  pigeon  is  found  in  one  of  the  fragments  of  Pherecrates,  a 
writer  of  comedies,  who  lived  in  the  fifth  century  before  our  era. 
Greek  seafarers  are  said  to  have  carried  on  their  ships  pigeons  for  the 
purpose  of  sending  home  tidings  of  their  welfare. 

Aelianus,  who  lived  in  the  second  century  of  our  era,  tells  this 
story,  "When  Taurosthenes  won  the  laurels  in  the  Olympic  games, 
intelligence  of  his  victory  was  conveyed  to  his  father  at  Aeginaon  the 
same  day  by  means  of  a  pigeon  whom  he  took  away  from  her  young 
ones  who  were  still  unfeathered.  He  attached  a  purple  piece  of  cloth 
to  the  bird  and  released  her;  she  sped  away  to  her  young  ones  and  in 
a  day  returned  from  Pisa  to  Aegina." 

Pisa  was  an  ancient  town  in  the  territory  of  Elis  in  the  western 
part  of  the  Peloponnesus,  not  far  from  Olympia,  where  the  celebrated 


The  Air  Mail  of  Ancient  Times  75 

athletic  games  and  contests  were  held.  The  distance  from  Pisa  to 
Aegina  amounts  to  about  twenty-three  and  a  half  geographical  miles. 
It  will  be  noticed  that  in  this  case  not  a  letter,  but  merely  a  pre-ar- 
ranged token  of  victory  was  attached  to  the  flying  messenger;  purple 
was  a  symbol  of  victory. 

Pliny  (X,  110)  relates  that  pigeons  have  acted  as  messengers  in 
important  affairs  (internuntiae  in  magnis  rebus  fuere)  and  cites  as 
example  that  during  the  siege  of  Mutina,  Decimus  Brutus,  who  was 
beleaguered  in  that  city  by  Antonius  from  December,  44,  till  April, 
43  B.C.,  sent  into  the  camp  of  the  consuls  (Hirtius  and  Pansa)  dis- 
patches fastened  to  pigeon's  feet  (epistulas  adnexas  earum  pedibus). 
A  somewhat  different  version  of  this  event  is  contained  in  the  work  of 
Frontinus  (Strategemata  III.  13,  8)  of  the  first  century  of  our  era: 
the  Consul  Hirtius  attached  letters  to  the  neck  of  pigeons  by  means  of 
strong  hair;  previously  he  had  starved  the  pigeons  in  a  dark  room; 
thereupon  he  released  them  near  Mutina,  where  they  settled  on  the 
roofs  of  the  houses,  and  were  caught  by  Brutus,  who  in  this  manner 
was  duly  informed  of  the  events.  Caesar  is  said  to  have  been  advised 
of  a  revolt  in  Gaul  by  pigeon-post  just  in  time  that  he  could  lead  his 
legion  down  the  Alps  to  suppress  the  rebellion. 

However,  what  is  known  about  the  use  of  carrier  pigeons  among 
Greeks  and  Romans  is  restricted  to  isolated  instances.  We  must  not 
generalize  that  it  was  a  customary  practice,  for  there  are  no  records 
of  carrier  pigeons  having  been  kept  and  trained  for  such  purpose  in 
large  numbers,  nor  was  there  anything  like  a  regular  pigeon-mail. 
The  curious  fact  remains  that  carrier  pigeons  were  not  transmitted 
from  Italy  to  northern  Europe  in  the  wake  of  Roman  civilization. 
The  North-European  nations  first  made  the  acquaintance  of  carrier 
pigeons  in  the  Orient  during  the  Crusades,  and  from  that  time  onward 
they  appeared  inEurope,  inclusive  of  Italy,  as  a  novel  affair.  There- 
fore it  is  reasonable  to  conclude  that  among  the  ancients  the  whole 
business  was  of  no  great  significance  and  that  it  was  extinct  in  the 
days  of  the  declining  Roman  Empire.  The  consensus  of  opinion  is 
that  the  Greeks  derived  the  institution  from  the  Near  East,  and  we 
have  to  wend  our  way  back  again  to  the  Orient  to  learn  more  about 
its  history. 

Mesopotamia  appears  to  be  the  home  of  the  domesticated  pigeon, 
and  the  domestication  of  the  bird  was  accomplished  as  early  as  pre- 
Semitic  times  by  the  Sumerians.  In  Sumerian  documents  the  pigeon 
is  referred  to  as  a  domestic  bird.   Among  the  Semites  pigeons  were 


76  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

closely  connected  with  religious  practices?  They  are  sacred  to  the 
goddess  Ishtar  (Astarte),  the  mother  goddess  or  great  goddess  per- 
sonifying the  productive  powers  of  the  earth,  life,  generation,  and 
death. 

Lucian,  in  his  treatise  on  The  Syrian  Goddess,  informs  us  with 
reference  to  Syria,  "Of  birds  the  dove  seems  to  be  the  most  holy  to 
them,  nor  do  they  think  it  right  to  harm  these  birds,  and  if  any  one 
have  harmed  them  unknowingly,  they  are  unholy  for  that  day;  so 
when  the  pigeons  dwell  with  the  men,  they  enter  their  rooms  and 
commonly  feed  on  the  ground." 

It  is  unknown,  however,  when  and  where  pigeons  were  first 
trained  for  conveying  messages.  Nothing  to  this  effect  has  as  yet  come 
to  light  in  the  cuneiform  literatures  or  on  Egyptian  monuments; 
both  in  Egypt  and  Mesopotamia  the  practice  was  unknown.  At  the 
outset  it  is  improbable  that  it  might  have  been  developed  in  the  Eu- 
phrates valley,  where  clay  tablets  were  the  common  writing-material, 
which  on  account  of  their  weight  could  not  have  been  attached  to 
pigeons;  in  later  times,  of  course,  parchment  and  papyrus  were  also 
used  in  Mesopotamia. 

The  dove  which  Noah  sent  forth  from  the  ark  three  times  has 
frequently  been  classified  among  carrier  pigeons,  but  this  notion  is 
erroneous.  Noah's  dove  represents  an  entirely  distinct  class:  it  is  not 
sent  out  with  a  message,  but  belongs  to  the  category  of  land-spying 
birds,  such  as  navigators  of  ancient  times  used  to  keep  on  board  their 
ships  and  which  were  released  by  them  when  in  quest  of  land  if  they 
had  lost  their  bearings,  on  the  supposition  that  the  birds  would  fly  in 
the  direction  of  land;  these  birds,  of  course,  never  returned  to  their 
ships.  In  the  Pali  Baveru  Jataka,  which  echoes  ancient  commercial 
relations  of  India  with  Baveru  or  Babiru,  i.e.  Babylon,  the  Indian 
seafarers  are  assisted  by  a  crow  which  serves  for  the  purpose  of  direct- 
ing their  way  in  the  four  quarters.  The  crow  has  a  well-developed 
sense  of  locality,  and  in  all  ancient  systems  of  divinations  crow  or 
raven  auguries  are  correlated  with  the  cardinal  points.  According  to 
Pliny,  the  mariners  of  Taprobane  (Ceylon)  did  not  take  recourse  to 
the  observation  of  stars  for  the  purpose  of  navigation,  but  carried 
birds  out  to  sea,  which  they  sent  off  from  time  to  time,  and  then 
followed  the  course  of  the  birds  who  flew  in  the  direction  of  land. 
When  the  people  of  Thera  emigrated  to  Libya,  ravens  accompanied 
them  ahead  of  the  ships  to  guide  their  way.  In  the  ninth  century 
when  the  Vikings  sailed  from  Norway,  they  kept  on  board  birds  who 
were  set  free  from  time  to  time  amid  sea,  and  with  their  aid  they 


The  Air  Mail  of  Ancient  Times  77 

succeeded  in  discovering  Iceland.  Land  expeditions  also  were  ac- 
companied by  land-spying  birds,  and  tribes  on  the  path  of  migration 
would  settle  in  a  territory  where  birds  carried  along  by  them  would 
descend.  The  Celts,  as  Justinus  informs  us,  were  skilled  beyond 
other  peoples  in  the  science  of  augury,  and  the  Gauls  who  invaded 
Illyricum  were  guided  by  the  flight  of  birds.  The  legendary  emperor 
Jimmu  of  ancient  Japan  when  engaged  in  a  war  expedition  marched 
under  the  guidance  of  a  gold-colored  raven. 

It  is  asserted  by  many  authors  that  the  ancient  Hebrews  were 
acquainted  with  carrier  pigeons,  but  there  is  no  direct  evidence  to 
this  effect  in  the  Old  or  New  Testament. 

In  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge  we  can  only  assert  with 
safety  that  the  highest  development  in  the  use  of  pigeon  messengers 
was  reached  in  the  empire  of  the  Caliphs  and  under  the  Moham- 
medan dynasties  of  Egypt  when  the  whole  business  was  organized 
and  systematized  on  a  scientific  basis,  while,  of  course,  isolated  cases 
occurred  many  centuries  earlier.  The  Arabs,  on  their  part,  were  only 
to  a  small  extent  original  or  inventive,  but  exceedingly  clever  in  ab- 
sorbing and  digesting  the  ideas  and  cultures  of  subject  nations,  and 
thus  created  an  imperialistic  civilization  as  a  result  of  their  far-flung 
conquests.  Indo-Iranian  peoples  may  very  well  have  given  the  first 
impetus  to  the  training  of  carrier  pigeons. 

Damiri  (1341-1405),  in  his  Book  of  Animals  ( Hay  at  al-hayawan), 
writes  in  regard  to  the  pigeon,  "It  may  be  mentioned  as  a  part  of  its 
nature  that  it  seeks  and  finds  out  its  nest  even  if  it  be  set  free  at  a 
distance  of  a  thousand  leagues;  it  carries  news  and  brings  it  from  a 
very  distant  place  in  a  very  short  time.  There  are  some  pigeons 
which  can  fly  three  thousand  leagues  in  a  day.  It  may  sometimes 
happen  that  it  is  caught,  and  may  be  thus  away  from  its  native  place 
for  ten  years  or  more,  but  it  still  retains  its  intelligence  and  power  of 
memory,  and  is  desirous  of  returning  to  its  native  place,  so  that  when 
it  finds  an  opportunity,  it  flies  back  to  it." 

Damiri  likewise  informs  us  that  the  Caliph  Harun  al-Rashid 
(786-809)  was  very  fond  of  pigeons  and  sporting  with  them.  The 
Arabian  Nights  (No.  698)  introduce  to  us  the  father  of  Dalila  who 
was  postmaster  and  guard  of  the  carrier  pigeons  at  the  court  of  this 
illustrious  Caliph  at  a  monthly  salary  of  a  thousand  dinars;  he  used 
to  train  the  pigeons  so  that  they  conveyed  letters  and  messages,  and 
to  the  Caliph  each  of  these  birds  was  dearer  at  a  time  of  distress  than 
any  of  his  sons.  After  her  husband's  death,  Dalila  and  her  daughter 
took  care  of  the  forty  pigeons,  and  she  would  daily  visit  the  state 


78  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

council  to  find  out  whether  the  Caliph  had  a  message  to  transmit  by 
pigeon-mail. 

In  another  story  of  the  Arabian  Nights  (No.  96),  Afridun,  king  of 
Constantinople,  is  advised  of  the  movements  of  the  Mohammedan 
army  in  Asia  Minor  by  means  of  a  letter  sent  "on  the  wings  of  a  bird" 
and  brought  to  him  by  the  Guardian  of  the  Pigeons. 

According  to  Masudi  (tenth  century),  news  of  the  victory  over  a 
rebel  army  was  conveyed  to  the  Caliph  Motasim  (838-847)  by  pigeon- 
post.  In  1171  the  Sultan  Nur-ed-din  established  a  regular  air  mail  in 
Syria,  actuated  by  the  desire  to  obtain  as  quickly  as  possible  intelli- 
gence of  everything  that  happened  in  all  of  his  provinces.  For  this 
purpose  he  ordered  pigeons  to  be  maintained  in  all  castles  and  fort- 
resses of  his  empire,  also  had  special  towers  erected  for  breeding  and 
postal  purposes,  and  devoted  the  greatest  care  to  the  training  of  the 
birds.  After  his  death  this  mail  service  declined  until  in  the  year  1179 
it  was  re-established  by  the  Caliph  Ahmed  Naser-lidin-allah,  who  had 
a  veritable  passion  for  pigeons  and  bestowed  a  special  name  on  each 
bird.  In  sending  a  letter  by  pigeon-mail  he  was  in  the  habit  of  desig- 
nating in  the  letter  the  exact  name  of  the  feathered  messenger,  thus: 
"This  bird,  son  of ..."  or  "this  bird,  mother  of. ... "  In  this  manner 
he  conducted  a  voluminous  correspondence  with  the  remotest  parts 
of  his  dominion.  The  air  mail  developed  into  a  general  institution 
in  his  time,  and  although  many  engaged  in  the  business  of  raising 
pigeons  whose  number  was  enormous,  their  prices  reached  amazing 
figures:  a  well-trained  pair  sold  at  a  price  up  to  a  thousand  gold 
pieces.  Baghdad  was  the  central  station  of  the  air  mail  until  it  was 
conquered  by  the  Mongols  in  1258. 

The  price  of  a  pigeon  of  the  first  quality  amounted  to  seven 
hundred  dinars  (gold  coins),  and  the  egg  of  such  a  bird  sold  as  high 
as  twenty  dinars.  Genealogies  of  renowned  pigeons  were  kept  on 
special  registers. 

One  of  the  most  curious  incidents  in  the  history  of  the  pigeon- 
mail,  as  reported  by  Makrizi,  refers  to  the  rapid  transmission  by  air 
of  a  consignment  of  cherries.  The  Caliph  Aziz  (975-996)  of  the  Fati- 
mid  dynasty,  distinguished  by  his  tolerance  and  his  love  for  science, 
had  a  great  desire  for  a  dish  of  cherries  of  Balbek.  The  Vezir,  Yakub 
Ben-Kilis,  caused  six  hundred  pigeons  to  be  dispatched  from  Balbek 
to  Cairo,  each  of  which  carried  attached  to  either  leg  a  small  silk  bag 
containing  a  cherry.  This  is  the  first  example  of  parcel  post  by  air 
mail  recorded  in  history. 


The  Air  Mail  of  Ancient  Times  79 

In  his  "History  of  Egypt  in  the  Middle  Ages"  Stanley  Lane-Poole 
writes,  "The  most  famous  and  energetic  of  all  the  Bahri  Mamluks, 
Beybars  (1266-77),  established  a  well-organized  system  of  posts,  con- 
necting every  part  of  his  wide  dominions  with  the  capital.  Relays 
of  horses  were  in  readiness  and  answered  reports  from  all  parts  of  the 
realm.  Besides  the  ordinary  mail,  there  was  also  a  pigeon-post, 
which  was  no  less  carefully  managed.  The  pigeons  were  kept  in  cots 
in  the  citadel  and  at  the  various  stages,  which  were  farther  apart  than 
those  of  the  horses;  the  bird  was  trained  to  stop  at  the  first  post-cot 
where  its  letter  would  be  attached  to  the  wing  of  another  pigeon  for 
the  next  stage.  The  royal  pigeons  had  a  distinguishing  mark,  and 
when  one  of  these  arrived  at  the  citadel  with  a  dispatch,  none  was 
permitted  to  detach  the  parchment  save  the  Sultan  himself;  and  so 
stringent  were  the  rules,  that  were  he  dining  or  sleeping  or  in  the  bath, 
he  would  nevertheless  at  once  be  informed  of  the  arrival,  and  would 
immediately  proceed  to  disencumber  the  bird  of  its  message."  Bey- 
bars connected  Damascus  and  Cairo  by  a  postal  service  of  four  days, 
and  used  to  play  polo  in  both  cities  within  the  same  week.  Pigeons 
contributed  to  the  complete  defeat  of  the  Mongols  after  the  decisive 
battle  of  Hims  (Emesa  in  Syria)  in  1281,  when  they  were  beaten  back 
by  Kalaun,  who  harassed  their  retreat  and  sent  orders  by  pigeons  to 
his  governors  at  the  Euphrates  to  bar  the  fords  to  the  fleeing  enemy. 

The  letters,  which  were  written  on  a  fine  tissue  paper  with  speci- 
fications of  place,  day,  and  hour,  were  fastened  beneath  the  wings, 
at  a  later  time  to  the  tail-feather. 

The  caretakers  brought  the  incoming  birds  directly  to  the  Sultan 
who  alone  had  the  right  to  take  the  letters  off.  The  pigeons  were  there- 
fore called  by  the  Arabs  "angels  of  the  kings."  An  Arabic  scholar 
says,  "The  carrier  pigeons  are  arrows  which  reach  their  goal  despite 
the  resistance  offered  them  by  the  clouds.  There  is  no  mistake  in 
styling  them  the  prophets  among  the  birds,  because  like  the 
prophets  they  are  dispatched  with  scriptures."  An  Arabic  poet  has 
this  line:  "In  the  marvellous  speed  of  their  flight  they  rush  ahead 
of  the  winds;  swiftly  like  a  moment  they  bear  under  their  wings 
in  rapid  flight  tidings  of  what  happens  in  places  distant  a  month's 
journey." 

Another  Arabic  author  writes,  "The  pigeons  who  forward  mes- 
sages are  a  wonder  of  divine  almightiness  worthy  of  being  admired 
and  praised  by  us.  In  faithfully  executing  their  commissions  they 
confirm  the  proverb  which  calls  them  birds  of  auspicious  foreboding. 
Indeed  they  often  surpass  the  itinerant  messengers:  the  clouds  are 


80  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

their  bridles,  the  air  is  the  course  they  race  through,  the  wings  are 
their  equipment,  the  winds  are  their  escorts.  They  fear  on  their 
nights  neither  brigands  of  the  desert  nor  the  perils  threatening  from 
accidents  on  the  roads." 

In  1323  Symon  Semeon,  an  Irish  Franciscan,  and  his  companion, 
Hugo  Illuminator,  were  on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land  and 
stopped  at  Alexandria.  An  entry  in  Symon's  diary  reads  as  follows: 
"The  admiral  [of  Alexandria],  on  learning  of  the  affair  [the  arrival  of 
the  two  pilgrims],  immediately  dispatched  a  message  to  the  Sultan  at 
Cairo  by  means  of  a  carrier  pigeon.  These  pigeons  were  trained  in  the 
Sultan's  Castle  at  Cairo  and  sent  in  cages  to  the  governors  of  the 
various  maritime  cities,  who  whenever  they  wish  to  make  something 
known  to  the  Sultan  dispatch  one  with  a  letter  tied  under  its  tail, 
which  never  stops  until  it  has  reached  the  castle  from  which  it  was 
brought  originally;  and  so  the  Sultan  and  his  governors  are  informed 
daily  of  what  is  going  on  in  the  country  and  of  the  necessary  measures 
to  be  taken." 

A  German  pilgrim,  von  Bodmann,  paid  a  visit  to  the  Holy  Land  in 
1376-77,  and  when  his  ship  neared  Alexandria,  she  was  boarded  by 
two  officials  from  the  city  who  drew  up  two  lists  of  the  vessel's  cargo. 
These,  he  relates,  were  tied  to  the  wings  of  two  pigeons  who  were 
dispatched  to  the  court  of  King  Soldan  at  Babylon,  a  distance  of  two 
hundred  miles. 

In  the  second  half  of  the  fifteenth  century  the  governmental 
pigeon-post  expired  in  consequence  of  political  troubles,  but  as  a 
means  of  private  communication  it  has  survived  in  the  Orient  long 
after  and  even  until  the  present  time,  especially  in  commercial 
correspondence  when  transactions  had  to  be  made  quickly  or  when 
perishable  merchandize  like  drugs  and  perfumes  were  at  stake. 
Travelling  merchants  also  availed  themselves  of  the  air  mail  to  advise 
their  families  of  their  safe  arrival  at  a  place. 

In  1599  Thomas  Dallam,  the  organ-builder,  during  his  voyage 
from  London  to  Constantinople,  made  the  following  observation  on 
the  use  of  carrier  pigeons:  "The  firste  of  June  thare  was  letters  con- 
vayede  varrie  straingly  from  Alippo  to  Scandaroune,  the  which  is 
thre  score  and  twelve  myles  distance.  After  I  hade  bene  thare  a 
litle  whyle,  I  persaved  that  it  was  an  ordinarie  thinge.  For,  as  we 
weare  sittinge  in  our  marchantes  house  talkinge,  and  pidgons  weare  a 
feedinge  in  the  house  before  us,  thare  came  a  whyte  cote  pidgon  fly- 
inge  in,  and  lyghte  on  the  grounde  amongeste  his  fellowes,  the  which, 
when  one  of  the  marchantes  saw,  he  sayd:  Welcom,  Honoste  Tom, 


The  Air  Mail  of  Ancient  Times  81 

and,  takinge  him  upe,  thare  was  tied  with  a  thred  under  his  wynge,  a 
letter,  the  bignes  of  a  twelve  penc,  and  it  was  Dated  but  four  houres 
before.  After  that  I  saw  the  lyke  done,  and  always  in  4  houres." 

Linschoten,  the  great  Dutch  traveller  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
describes  the  pigeon-mail  in  the  Turkish  empire  extending  from  Bas- 
sora  and  Babylonia  to  Aleppo  and  Constantinople,  and  writes  that 
the  letters  were  fastened  to  a  ring  placed  around  the  bird's  leg. 

Pietro  della  Valle  (Viaggi  in  Turchia,  Persia  e  India,  Vol.  I, 
p.  284)  wrote  in  a  letter  dispatched  from  Ispahan  in  1619,  "From  the 
Province  of  Babylon  whither  I  addressed  a  letter  I  am  awaiting  some 
pigeons  which  convey  letters  from  one  place  to  another  and  which 
Tasso  styles  'flying  carrier'  (portator  volante).  They  have  thus  been 
used  in  Asia  from  the  earliest  times  down  to  the  present." 

The  Jesuit  father  Philippe  Avril  (about  1670)  relates  how  pigeon 
messages  were  sent  from  Alexandria  to  Aleppo.  "No  sooner  had  we 
got  ashore,"  he  writes,  "but  we  had  the  pleasure  to  see  dispatched 
away  before  us  one  of  the  messengers  which  they  make  use  of  in  those 
parts  to  carry  such  intelligence  as  they  would  have  speedily  made 
known.  For  the  doing  of  which,  their  most  usual  way  is  this.  A 
merchant  of  Aleppo,  who  desires  to  have  the  most  early  information 
of  what  merchandizes  are  come  from  France  or  any  other  parts,  takes 
particular  care  by  an  express  to  send  away  a  pigeon  that  has  young 
ones,  much  about  the  time  that  the  ships  are  expected  at  Alexan- 
dretta,  where  he  has  his  correspondent;  who  as  soon  as  any  vessel 
comes  to  an  anchor,  goes  and  informs  himself  of  what  goods  the 
vessel  has  brought  most  proper  for  his  turn;  of  which  when  he  has 
given  a  full  account  in  his  letter,  he  fastens  the  paper  about  the  neck 
of  the  winged  courier,  and  carrying  her  to  the  top  of  a  little  mountain, 
gives  her  her  liberty,  never  fearing  her  going  astray.  The  pigeon 
which  we  saw  let  go,  after  she  had  soared  a  good  height  to  discover, 
doubtless,  the  place  from  whence  she  had  been  taken  some  few  days 
before,  and  pushed  forward  by  that  instinct,  which  is  common  to  all 
birds  that  have  young  ones,  took  her  flight  toward  Aleppo,  and  ar- 
rived there  in  less  than  three  hours,  tho  that  city  be  very  near  thirty 
leagues  from  the  place  from  whence  she  was  sent.  However,  they  do 
not  make  use  of  any  sort  of  pigeons  to  carry  their  dispatches,  in  regard 
that  all  pigeons  are  not  alike  proper  for  that  service.  For  there  is  a 
particular  sort  of  these  birds,  which  are  easily  trained  up  to  this  ex- 
ercise, and  which  as  occasion  serves,  are  of  extraordinary  use,  espec- 
ially for  the  swift  management  of  business,  and  where  speed  of 
intelligence  is  required,  as  in  the  factories  of  the  Levant,  far  remote 


82  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

one  from  the  other.  This  was  the  only  piece  of  curiosity  which 
we  could  observe  during  our  stay  in  this  same  first  port  of  the 
East."  

During  the  middle  ages,  the  European  nations  became  acquainted 
with  the  pigeon  air  mail  when  the  cross  and  the  crescent  clashed  dur- 
ing the  crusades.  In  the  history  of  the  enterprises  against  the  infidels 
there  are  several  stories  on  record  which  depict  the  wonder  and 
amazement  of  the  Christian  soldiers  at  this  novel  experience.  In 
A.D.  1098  the  commander  of  the  Turkish  castle  Hasar  disobeyed  his 
liege  lord,  Rodvan  of  Aleppo,  who  declared  war  on  him.  The  Turkish 
chief  was  unable  to  resist  when  one  of  his  Emirs  counselled  him  as 
follows:  "Recently  when  Christian  pilgrims  marched  against  Edessa, 
I  captured  the  wife  of  a  knight,  Fulcher  (also  called  Foulqe)  of 
Bouillon, and  married  her  on  account  of  her  beauty.  She  is  acquainted 
with  our  perilous  situation  and  advises  us  to  seek  assistance  from  the 
Duke  of  Lorraine,  the  most  powerful  of  the  victorious  Franks."  The 
aversion  toward  an  alliance  with  Christians  was  suppressed  by  the 
apprehension  of  graver  consequences,  and  a  Syrian  was  dispatched 
to  the  Duke  with  a  ready  proposal.  Succor  was  promised  by  the 
latter,  and  the  son  of  the  Turkish  chief  retained  by  him  as  hostage. 
Meanwhile  Rodvan  beleaguered  the  fortress  Hasar  with  an  army  of 
forty  thousand,  and  the  Franks  were  at  a  loss  as  to  how  to  send  the 
tidings  of  the  pact  into  the  fortress.  To  their  amazement  the  Turkish 
envoys  brought  pigeons  forward  and  tied  papers  to  the  under  side 
of  their  wings.  The  birds  were  released,  and  the  Franks  assured  that 
the  good  news  would  reach  the  fortress  and  encourage  the  Emir  in  his 
resistance  till  the  arrival  of  the  relief  army. 

Another  episode  is  related  thus:  In  A.D.  1099  when  the  Christian 
army  advanced  from  Akkon  to  Caesarea,  a  wounded  pigeon,  who  had 
a  narrow  escape  from  the  claws  of  a  hawk,  dropped  lifeless  in  the 
camp  of  the  Christians.  The  bishop  of  Apt  picked  the  bird  up  and 
found  under  its  wings  a  letter  addressed  by  the  Emir  of  Ptolemais  to 
the  Emir  of  Caesarea,  reading  as  follows:  "The  cursed  rabble  of 
Christians  has  just  traversed  my  territory,  and  is  passing  on  to  yours. 
All  chiefs  of  Musulman  towns  should  be  informed  of  their  onward 
march  and  take  measures  to  crush  our  foes."  This  letter  was  read 
aloud  in  the  council  of  princes  and  before  the  entire  army.  Surprise 
and  joy  seized  the  Crusaders  who  did  not  doubt  that  God  protected 
their  enterprise,  since  he  sent  them  the  birds  of  heaven  to  reveal  the 
secrets  of  the  infidels. 


The  Air  Mail  of  Ancient  Times  83 

This  incident  has  inspired  Torquato  Tasso  (1544-95),  the  great 
Italian  poet  of  the  Renaissance,  to  a  poetic  composition,  which  is 
inserted  in  his  La  Gerusalemme  Liberate,  (Jerusalem  Delivered, XVIII, 
49-53).   I  give  a  literal  prose  rendering  of  my  own: — 

"While  the  camp  prepares  for  assault  and  the  city  for  defence,  a 
pigeon  is  seen  towering  high  along  aerial  paths  over  the  host  of  the 
Franks.  Agitating  her  swift  pinions,  she  sails  the  clear  air  with  out- 
stretched wings,  and  the  strange  messenger  (la  messaggiera  peregrina) 
is  just  about  to  alight  from  the  high  clouds  into  the  city. 

"A  falcon  (I  do  not  know  whence)  swoops  downward,  armed  with 
curved  beak  and  large  claws,  and  obstructs  her  path  between  the 
camp  and  city-wall.  She  does  not  wait  for  the  tyrant's  claws,  but  he 
pounces  upon  her  and  chases  her  to  the  main  tent.  He  seems  to 
reach  her  now,  and  holds  his  foot  over  her  tender  head  when  she  takes 
refuge  in  the  lap  of  the  pious  Godefroy  of  Bouillon. 

"Godefroy  takes  her  up  and  protects  her,  then,  while  looking  at 
her,  notes  a  strange  thing  suspended  from  her  neck  and  fastened  with 
a  thread, — a  letter  concealed  under  a  wing.  He  opens  it  and  unfolds 
it,  well  comprehending  the  terse  message  it  contains.  'To  the  Lord  of 
Judea,'  the  epistle  read,  'the  Captain  of  Egypt  sends  greetings. 

"Despond  not,  my  lord,  resist  and  hold  out  for  four  or  five  days, 
and  I  will  come  to  liberate  these  walls,  and  you  will  soon  see  your  foe 
vanquished.'  This  was  the  secret  conveyed  in  pagan  script  and  con- 
fided to  the  winged  courier,  as  the  Levante  employed  such  messengers 
at  that  time. 

"The  prince  released  the  pigeon  who,  since  she  had  revealed  her 
master's  secrets  and  fancied  that  she  had  betrayed  him,  did  not  dare 
to  return  as  an  unlucky  harbinger." 

The  poet  had  evidently  read  about  carrier  pigeons  in  the  docu- 
ments of  the  crusades,  and  was  profoundly  impressed  by  this  ingen- 
ious device  of  postal  service.  His  detailed  description,  as  well  as  his 
observation  that  this  was  customary  in  the  Levante,  seem  to  hint 
at  the  fact  that  letter-carrying  pigeons  were  still  unknown  in  the  Italy 
of  his  time, — the  sixteenth  century. 

Lodovico  Ariosto  (1474-1533),  in  his  Orlando  Furioso  (XV,  90), 
also  refers  to  the  pigeon-post:  The  giant  Orrilo  was  slain  by  the  duke 
Astolfo  on  the  lower  Nile,  and  this  event  was  air-mailed  by  the 
Castellan  of  Damiette  to  Cairo.  This  is  the  custom  there,  the  Italian 
poet  adds,  and  in  a  few  hours  the  news  was  broadcast  to  the  whole  of 
Egypt  that  the  bandit  had  met  his  death. 


84  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

Shakespeare  alludes  to  pigeons  as  letter-carriers  in  Titus  Andro- 
nicus  (IV,  3),  where  upon  the  entry  of  a  clown  with  two  pigeons 
Titus  exclaims, — 

News,  news  from  heaven!  Marcus,  the  post  is  come. 
Sirrah,  what  tidings?  Have  you  any  letters? 

Another  interesting  reference,  though  not  to  carrier  pigeons,  oc- 
curs in  Venus  and  Adonis,  where  Venus  rides  in  a  chariot  drawn  by 
doves: — 

Thus  weary  of  the  world,  away  she  hies, 

And  yokes  her  silver  doves;  by  whose  swift  aid 

Their  mistress,  mounted,  through  the  empty  skies 

In  her  light  chariot  quickly  is  convey'd; 

Holding  their  course  to  Paphos,  where  their  queen 

Means  to  immure  herself  and  not  be  seen. 

The  Crusaders  brought  carrier  pigeons  along  from  the  Orient. 
Mediaeval  knights  used  them  in  sending  communications  from  one 
castle  to  another;  the  convents  also  availed  themselves  of  pigeon 
messengers. 

A  study  of  the  various  breeds  of  carrier  pigeons  has  led  Darwin 
to  the  conviction  that  nearly  all  the  chief  domestic  races  existed 
before  the  year  1600  and  that  the  names  for  them  applied  in  different 
parts  of  Europe  and  in  India  to  the  several  kinds  of  carriers  all  point 
to  Persia  or  the  surrounding  countries  as  the  source  of  this  race. 
Certain  it  is  that  the  common  European  breeds  of  pigeon  were  not 
fit  for  air-mail  purposes,  but  that  all  varieties  used  in  Europe  for 
messenger  service  are  of  Oriental  origin  and  in  the  last  line  are  trace- 
able to  the  bagdotte  which  under  the  name  of  carrier  was  bred  to 
perfection  in  England.  The  Baghdad  pigeons  won  renown  every- 
where, and  were  known  simply  as  a  Baghdad,  or  Babylonian  pigeon. 
Thus  Thomas  Moore,  in  The  Fire-Worshippers,  has  the  line: — 

As  a  young  bird  of  Babylon, 
Let  loose  to  tell  of  victory  won — 

The  great  Rabelais  (1483-1553),  in  his  Gargantua  and  Pantag- 
ruel  (IV,  3),  makes  Pantagruel  correspond  with  his  father  Gargantua 
by  means  of  a  pigeon  called  "Gogal  [the  Hebrew  word  for  a  pigeon], 
the  heavenly  messenger."  Whenever  the  son  was  well  or  successful, 
he  tied  a  white  ribbon  to  the  bird's  foot;  in  case  something  untoward 
should  happen  to  him,  they  had  agreed  on  a  black  ribbon.  Rabelais 
describes  in  detail  this  manner  of  communication,  the  bird's  desire 
to  return  to  her  young  ones  as  swiftly  as  possible  and  the  rapidity 


The  Air  Mail  of  Ancient  Times  85 

of  her  flight,  which  seems  to  hint  at  the  fact  that  this  was  a  novel 
feature  in  his  time. 

The  first  employment  of  pigeons  for  military  purposes  in  Europe 
took  place  during  the  war  of  liberation  of  the  Netherlands  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  During  the  siege  of  Harlem  by  the  Spaniards  in 
1573,  the  garrison  received  several  advices  by  pigeon-mail,  an- 
nouncing the  approach  of  a  relief  army  under  the  command  of  the 
Prince  of  Orania,  and  therefore  persevered  in  its  resistance.  In 
commemoration  of  this  event  the  Prince  caused  these  pigeons  to  be 
cared  for  until  their  end,  and  after  their  death  they  were  stuffed  and 
preserved  in  the  town-hall  of  Leiden. 

The  breeding  of  carrier  pigeons  was  given  special  attention  in 
Belgium  as  early  as  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century.  From 
Belgium  the  experience  thus  gained  was  transmitted  to  France  and 
Germany.  In  Belgium,  Holland,  and  France  the  fondness  of  carrier 
pigeons  developed  into  a  sport. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  pigeon-mail  took  a 
new  development,  chiefly  for  commercial  purposes.  The  story  goes 
that  Rothschild  of  London  had  his  agents  join  Napoleon's  army  and 
received  from  them  first-hand  war  news  by  air  mail.  He  was  advised 
of  the  emperor's  defeat  at  Belle-Alliance  three  days  earlier  than  the 
British  Government,  and  correspondingly  arranged  his  financial  specu- 
lations. In  the  organization  of  the  modern  press  and  news  agencies 
pigeons  also  rendered  useful  services.  Reuter,  who  subsequently 
founded  Reuter's  Bureau  in  London,  started  his  career  by  founding  a 
pigeon-post  from  Aix-la-Chapelle  to  Brussels,  and  the  Gazette  of 
Cologne  at  first  maintained  such  an  aerial  news  service.  In  England 
also,  a  newspaper  reporter  equipped  with  a  small  pigeon-cage  was 
formerly  not  a  rare  sight  at  public  meetings  from  which  he  sent  his 
reports  immediately  to  his  paper  by  a  pigeon  messenger.  The  press 
availed  itself  of  pigeons  especially  for  the  purpose  of  reporting  yacht 
races,  and  some  yachts  were  actually  fitted  with  lofts.  I  am  informed 
by  Japanese  friends  that  pigeons  were  likewise  employed  by 
newspapers  in  Japan. 

The  French  were  the  first  who  ingeniously  used  carrier  pigeons 
for  military  purposes.  During  the  siege  of  Paris  in  1870  (till  January 
28,  1871)  several  hundred  pigeons  were  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the 
military  service  by  a  Carrier  Pigeon  Club.  The  sole  advices  that 
arrived  at  Paris  from  the  outside  world  at  that  time  were  conveyed 
by  the  wings  of  pigeons.  A  hundred  and  fifteen  thousand  official 
dispatches  and  about  a  million  private  messages  are  said  to  have 


86  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

reached  their  destination  in  this  manner.  The  dispatches  were  re- 
produced on  both  sides  of  small  films  by  means  of  microphotography ; 
eighteen  such  films  weighed  a  half  gram,  and  contained  from  twelve 
to  sixteen  large  folio  pages  of  news  on  an  area  of  about  a  hundred 
square  centimetres.  The  contents  of  a  complete  number  of  the  Times 
could  be  accommodated  in  this  space.  About  three  thousand  dis- 
patches could  be  copied  on  each  film.  The  films  were  rolled  and 
placed  in  a  quill  which  was  sealed  and  fastened  to  a  tail-feather  of  a 
pigeon  by  means  of  a  fine  wire  fortified  by  a  silk  thread.  For  the 
purpose  of  deciphering  the  incoming  dispatches  they  were  pro- 
jected, considerably  enlarged,  on  a  screen,  so  that  they  could  be 
easily  read  and  copied.  The  price  of  these  air  dispatches  was  half  a 
franc  (ten  cents)  each  word.  Money  orders  also  were  sent  out  to  the 
extent  of  three  hundred  francs  each.  The  average  income  from  every 
flight  of  a  carrier  pigeon  amounted  to  35,000  francs  ($7,000). 

During  the  World  War,  as  is  still  within  the  memory  of  every  one, 
pigeons  were  extensively  utilized  and  achieved  brilliant  records  of 
flight  under  great  difficulties.  A  case  of  supreme  endurance  was  noted 
on  October  21, 1918,  when  a  carrier  pigeon  was  released  with  an  im- 
portant message  at  Grand  Pre"  at  2:35  p.m.  during  intense  machine- 
gun  and  artillery  fire.  This  bird  delivered  its  message  to  the  loft  at 
Rampont,  a  distance  of  24.84  miles  in  twenty-five  minutes.  One  of 
its  legs  had  been  shot  off,  and  its  breast  was  injured  by  a  machine-gun 
bullet,  but  even  under  these  conditions  the  bird  did  not  fail  to  reach 
its  destination.  For  more  information  on  the  valorous  deeds  of  pig- 
eons in  our  army  the  National  Geographic  Magazine  (January, 
1926,  pp.  86-91)  may  be  consulted.  The  same  article  contains 
twelve  beautiful  colored  plates  representing  various  breeds  of 
pigeons. 

In  warfare  the  service  of  pigeons  will  always  remain  indispensable. 
Telephone  and  wireless  communication  are  often  interrupted  in  the 
zone  of  advance,  or  may  be  put  out  of  commission.  Scouts  and  couri- 
ers may  be  delayed  or  intercepted,  optical  signals  obscured  by  rain, 
smoke,  or  dust,  and  aerial  observation  hampered  by  unfavorable 
weather  conditions.  Pigeons  are  not  disturbed  by  bombardments, 
fog,  smoke,  or  dust,  and  will  work  regularly  under  almost  any  condi- 
tions. In  1919  an  area  of  Texas  was  wrecked  by  a  storm,  and  a  United 
States  Army  relief-train  was  dispatched  to  Corpus  Christi.  Pigeons 
carried  on  this  train  were  released  and  braved  storm  and  rain,  bring- 
ing the  first  news  of  conditions  in  the  stricken  area.  Even  for  two 
days  after  a  radio  had  been  set  up  and  put  in  operation,  the  pigeons 


The  Air  Mail  of  Ancient  Times  87 

were  the  only  means  of  conveying  news  from  that  district,  as  atmo- 
spheric conditions  crippled  radio  communication. 

Pigeons  are  still  bred  and  kept  in  large  numbers  for  messenger 
service  and  racing.  They  are  useful  for  transmitting  messages  where- 
ever  communication  by  telegraph  or  telephone  is  not  available.  In 
the  beginning  of  this  century  there  was  still  a  real  pigeon-mail  be- 
tween New  Zealand  and  Great  Barrier,  a  solitary  and  inhospitable 
isle  about  ninety  km  distant  from  Auckland,  whose  colonists  are  en- 
gaged in  mining  operations.  A  land-owner  of  this  isle,  Flicker  by 
name,  hit  upon  the  idea  to  establish  a  permanent  daily  pigeon-mail 
with  Auckland,  as  the  mail-steamer  ran  but  once  a  week.  The  letters 
had  to  be  written  on  a  special  form,  and  the  postage  from  Great 
Barrier  to  Auckland  was  twelve  cents,  in  the  opposite  direction 
twenty-five  cents.  The  Dutch  Government  established  a  pigeon-post 
system  in  Java  and  Sumatra  early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
birds  being  obtained  from  Baghdad. 

At  a  trial  flight  conducted  from  Compiegne  in  France  to  Antwerp 
a  swallow  previously  distinguished  by  a  special  mark  was  released 
simultaneously  with  several  carrier  pigeons.  The  bird  immediately 
took  up  its  flight  in  the  direction  of  Antwerp  whence  it  had  been 
taken,  while  the  pigeons,  as  they  always  do,  first  fluttered  around  to 
find  their  bearings.  The  swallow  made  the  way  from  Compiegne  to 
Antwerp  (255  km)  in  sixty-eight  minutes,  which  means  that  in  one 
minute  it  covered  3  %  km,  whereas  the  first  pigeon  arrived  only 
after  three  hours.  The  swallow  therefore  was  about  three  times  faster; 
it  would  be  the  swiftest  winged  messenger,  but  unfortunately  it  can- 
not be  trained  like  a  pigeon. 

Amazing  records  of  speed  and  endurance  have  been  achieved  by 
pigeons.  In  good  weather  young  birds  will  fly  about  three  hundred 
miles  in  from  seven  to  nine  hours,  and  flights  of  six  hundred  miles  in 
one  day  have  been  accomplished  by  older  birds.  This  is  the  maximum 
of  a  day's  flight;  in  fact,  only  a  very  small  percentage  of  the  birds 
will  make  five  hundred  miles  in  one  day.  During  favorable  weather 
some  pigeons  will  fly  five  hundred  miles  without  stopping  to  eat  or 
drink.  The  distance  from  Dover  to  London  (76  3^  miles  by  rail,  70 
miles  by  air-line)  was  once  covered  by  a  carrier  pigeon  beating  by 
twenty  minutes  the  express  train  which  ran  at  a  speed  of  sixty  miles 
an  hour. 


NOTES 

In  regard  to  Shun  as  a  flyer  and  user  of  a  parachute  compare  E. 
Chavannes,  Les  M£moires  historiques  de  Se-ma  Ts'ien,  Vol.  I,  p.  74; 
and  J.  Legge,  Chinese  Classics,  Vol.  Ill,  Prolegomena,  p.  114. 

The  K'ai  yuan  t'ien  pao  i  shi  (ch.  A,  p.  9)  relates  that  the  magician 
Ye  Fa-shan,  who  lived  under  the  T'ang  dynasty,  had  an  iron  mirror 
which  reflected  objects  like  water;  whenever  a  person  was  ill  and 
looked  into  this  mirror,  his  interior  organs  became  completely  visible, 
and  revealed  any  obstructions  that  might  be  there;  then  he  was 
treated  by  means  of  drugs  until  he  was  completely  cured.  Cf .  above, 
p.  11. 

The  same  work  also  contains  the  first  notice  of  carrier  pigeons 
(p.  5)  alluded  to  above  on  p.  71:  "In  his  youth  Chang  Kiu-ling 
kept  in  his  house  swarms  of  pigeons.  When  he  had  to  correspond 
with  his  relatives,  he  tied  the  letter  to  a  pigeon's  foot.  The  bird, 
relying  on  the  localities  to  which  it  had  been  trained,  flew  off  and 
delivered  the  letter.  Chang  Kiu-ling  styled  them  'flying  slaves.' 
His  contemporaries  were  all  filled  with  admiration." 

The  same  work  (ch.  B,  p.  24b)  contains  a  curious  story  of  a 
swallow  transmitting  a  letter:  "At  Ch'ang-an  there  was  a  man  of 
the  people,  Kwo  Hing-sien  by  name,  who  had  a  daughter  called 
Shao  Lan.  She  was  married  to  a  big  merchant,  Jen  Tsung,  who 
pursued  his  trade  in  Siang  (Hu-nan).  For  several  years  he  was 
absent  from  home,  and  no  news  from  him  had  reached  his  family. 
One  day  Shao  Lan  was  in  the  living-room  of  her  house  and  observed 
a  couple  of  swallows  playing  on  the  ridge-pole  of  the  roof.  She 
heaved  a  long  sigh  and  addressed  the  swallows,  'I  have  heard  that 
you  swallows  come  from  the  east  of  the  sea  and  return  there  and  in 
your  constant  migrations  must  pass  through  Siang.  My  husband 
left  home  several  years  ago,  and  has  not  returned.  There  is  no 
tidings  as  to  whether  he  is  dead  or  alive,  and  I  have  no  means  of 
knowing  whether  he  exists  or  not.  I  trust  to  you  to  deliver  a  letter 
to  my  husband.'  When  she  had  finished  her  speech,  she  burst  into 
tears.  The  swallows  fluttered  around,  uttering  sounds  as  though 
responding  to  her  request.  Again,  Lan  spoke  to  them,  'If  you  wish 
to  be  loyal  to  me,  descend  into  my  lap!'  The  swallows  thereupon 
flew  on  her  lap,  and  with  many  sighs  Lan  recited  the  following 
stanza:  'My  husband  has  gone  far  away  beyond  the  lakes;  I  am 
almost  in  despair,  mingling  bloody  tears  with  this  message.    Con- 

88 


Notes  89 

fidently  I  trust  to  the  swallow's  wings  to  transmit  this  letter  to  my 
unfeeling  husband.'  Thereupon  Lan  committed  this  brief  message 
to  writing  and  tied  it  to  the  foot  of  one  of  the  swallows.  These 
emitted  a  sound  and  flew  off.  Jen  Tsung  then  happened  to  be  at 
King-chou  and  suddenly  noticed  a  swallow  flying  above  him.  He 
was  astounded  when  he  saw  the  bird  who  alighted  on  his  shoulder. 
He  observed  that  a  tiny  letter  was  attached  to  the  bird's  foot;  he 
released  it  and  read  his  wife's  message  in  verse.  He  was  deeply 
moved  and  shed  tears.  The  swallow  rose  into  the  air  and  flew  off. 
The  following  year  Jen  Tsung  returned  home  and  showed  Shao  Lan 
the  verses  which  she  had  written.  Subsequently  the  scholar  Chang 
Yiie  (a  well-known  poet,  A.D.  667-730)  recorded  this  story  to  have 
it  preserved  as  a  curiosity  of  literature." 

Chao,  an  emperor  of  the  Han  dynasty,  while  hunting  in  a  park, 
shot  a  wild  goose  and  found  a  piece  of  cloth  attached  to  one  of  its 
feet.  It  contained  a  message  to  the  effect  that  Su  Wu  and  his  com- 
panions were  in  a  certain  marsh  in  the  country  of  the  Hiung-nu. 
Messengers  were  at  once  dispatched  to  the  Hiung-nu  to  demand 
the  release  of  the  prisoners  who  had  been  believed  to  be  dead  (P£til- 
lon,  Allusions,  p.  505;  Giles,  Biogr.  Diet.,  p.  685). 

The  first  who  made  the  passage  from  the  Ti  wang  shi  ki  known 
was  G.  Schlegel  (Chinesische  Brauche  und  Spiele  in  Europa,  p.  32, 
Breslau,  1869).  Schegel,  in  the  same  manner  as  I,  takes  Ki-kung-shi 
(wrongly  written  by  him  Ki-kwang-shi)  as  the  name  of  an  individual, 
but  draws  an  erroneous  conclusion  from  this  text  when  he  observes 
the  "the  air-balloon  invented  in  Europe  in  1872  was  assuredly  known 
to  the  ancient  Chinese."  The  Chinese  "flying  chariot"  has  nothing  to 
do  with  a  balloon  which  is  based  on  the  principle  of  a  bag  filled  with 
heated  air  or  hydrogen  gas;  such  a  contrivance  was  not  known  to  the 
Chinese  at  any  time,  notwithstanding  what  has  been  written  to  the 
contrary.  Professor  Giles,  in  the  article  quoted  below,  justly  remarks, 
"No  credence  whatever  should  be  given  to  the  absurd  story  of  the 
French  missionary,  Father  Besson,  who  is  said  to  have  written  in 
1694,  stating  that  a  balloon  had  ascended  from  Peking  at  the  coro- 
nation of  Fo  Kien  in  1306.  No  emperor  was  crowned  in  1306,  and  no 
such  emperor  is  known  to  Chinese  history  as  Fo  Kien." 

H.  A.  Giles,  Traces  of  Aviation  in  Ancient  China  (in  his  Adver- 
saria Sinica,  Vol.  I,  No.  8, 1910,  pp.  229-236),  cites  all  texts  relative 
to  the  Ki-kung  flying  chariot,  save  the  one  from  the  Ti  wang  shi  ki. 
It  is  noteworthy  that  the  Ts'e  Yuan  (under  "flying  chariot")  quotes 


90  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

only  the  latter,  which  apparently  is  the  most  important,  but  omits  the 
Po  wu  chi,  Shu  i  ki,  and  Kin  lou  tse. 

As  in  European  folk-lore,  so  in  China  also  rocks  of  peculiar  shape, 
bells,  statues,  swords,  and  other  objects  are  credited  with  a  magic 
power  of  flight.  "A  rock  which  arrived  flying"  (fei  lai  shi)  is  shown 
on  the  sacred  Mount  T'ai  in  Shan-tung.  Flying  swords  are  mentioned 
in  the  romance  of  the  Three  Kingdoms  (Brewitt-Taylor,  San  Kuo, 
Vol.  II,  p.  311).  "Flying  scissors"  {fei  lai  tsien)  of  cast  iron  are 
figured  and  described  by  L.  Gaillard  (Croix  et  Swastika  en  Chine, 
1893,  p.  217). 

Good  information  on  Korean  and  Japanese  kites  will  be  found  in 
the  interesting  book  of  Stewart  Culin,  Korean  Games  with  Notes  on 
the  Corresponding  Games  of  China  and  Japan,  pp.  9-21  (Philadel- 
phia, 1895) ;  see  also  W.  M  tiller,  Der  Papierdrachen  in  Japan  (Stutt- 
gart, 1914),  who  deals  well  with  the  construction  of  Japanese  kites. 

Those  interested  in  the  subject  of  kite-fishing  may  consult  H. 
Balfour,  Kite-fishing,  in  Essays  and  Studies  Presented  to  William 
Ridgeway  (1913),  pp.  583-608,  and  H.  Plischke,  Der  Fischdrachen, 
published  by  Museum  fur  Volkerkunde,  Leipzig,  No.  6, 1922.  In  this 
monograph  the  distribution  of  kite-fishing  and  the  use  of  kites  for 
fishing  in  Indonesia,  Melanesia,  and  Micronesia  are  set  forth  in  detail. 
The  author  also  regards  China  as  the  home  of  the  kite  whence  it 
spread  to  Indonesia  and  the  South  Sea  Islands  on  the  one  hand  and  to 
Europe  on  the  other  hand.  His  statement  (p.  36)  that  the  earliest 
Chinese  references  to  the  kite  belong  to  the  second  and  fifth  centuries 
B.C.,  however,  is  erroneous;  he  has  been  misled  by  De  Groot  (Religi- 
ous System  of  China,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  665),  who  misinterprets  the  wooden 
bird  mentioned  by  Mo  Ti  as  a  kite. 

In  the  Panchakyanaka,  a  Jaina  recension  of  the  Panchatantra, 
we  also  find  the  story  of  the  Weaver  as  Vishnu  (translated  by  J. 
Hertel,  Indische  Marchen,  1921,  p.  92);  in  this  version,  the  Garuda 
airship  is  set  in  motion  by  a  push  of  the  elbows. 

The  story  of  the  Bodhisatva  as  a  divine  horse  rescuing  merchants 
from  flesh-devouring  ogres  by  carrying  them  from  Ceylon  to  India, 
traversing  the  clouds  and  passing  the  sea  to  the  other  side,  is  contained 
in  the  Valahassa  Jataka  (Jataka  No.  196)  and  Hiian  Tsang's  account 
(S.  Beal,  Buddhist  Records  of  the  Western  World,  Vol.  II,  p.  242). 

The  influences  of  Greece  on  India  are  set  forth  in  a  good  summary 
by  Count  Goblet  d'Alviella  in  his  book  Ce  que  l'lnde  doit  a  la  Grece: 
des  influences  classiques  dans  la  civilisation  de  l'lnde  (2nd  ed.,  Paris, 
1926).   While  art,  medicine,  mathematics,  and  astronomy  are  duly 


Notes  91 

considered,  mechanics  and  references  to  airships  are  passed  over  with 
silence. 

Sylvain  Levi,  however,  in  his  treatise  Quid  de  Graecis  veterum 
Indorum  monumenta  tradiderint  (Paris,  1890,  p.  24),  has  thus 
referred  to  the  Yavana  airship:  "Memorandus  tandem  ille  Yavana 
qui  machinam  per  aera  volantem  construxerat,  ut  Candis  principem 
tolleret." 

In  regard  to  the  myth  of  Etana  see  G.  Hiising,  Zum  Etana 
Mythos,  Archiv  fitr  Religionswissenschaft,  1903,  p.  149,  and  Die  ira- 
nische  Ueberlieferung  (1909),  pp.  39, 100;  M.  Jastrow,  Another  Frag- 
ment of  the  Etana  Myth,  Journal  American  Oriental  Society,  1910, 
pp.  101-129;  B.  Meissner,  Babylonien  und  Assyrien,  Vol.  II  (1925), 
pp.  189-191.  The  British  Museum  seal  representing  Etana's  bold 
flight  is  figured  and  described  by  P.  S.  P.  Handcock,  Mesopotamian 
Archaeology  (1912),  pp.  297-298.  W.  H.  Ward,  The  Seal  Cylinders 
of  Western  Asia,  pp.  142-148  (Washington,  Carnegie  Institution, 
1910),  describes  five  seals  with  this  subject. 

The  story  of  Kai  Kawus  is  also  recorded  in  the  Bundahishn  (trans- 
lated by  E.  W.  West  in  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  Vol.  XXXVII, 
pp.  220-223)  and  in  the  Arabic  History  of  the  Kings  of  Persia  by 
Al-Tha'alibi,  translated  by  H.  Zotenberg  (Histoire  des  rois  des  Perses, 
1900,  p.  167).  The  Arabic  chronicler  gives  the  case  a  more  theological 
flavor  by  making  Kai  Kawus  construct  the  tower  of  Babylon  whence 
he  takes  his  skyward  flight.  After  his  fall  he  demands  milk  and  water 
from  the  people  who  have  come  to  his  rescue,  and  that  locality  was 
therefore  called  Siraf  ("Milk  and  Water").  In  the  same  work  (p.  13) 
is  found  the  story  of  King  Jemshed  constructing  a  chariot  of  teak  and 
ivory  which  is  transported  by  demons  through  the  air  and  in  which 
he  flies  from  Donbawand  to  Babylon  in  a  single  day. 

Hodgson  errs  in  tracing  Godwin's  bird-airship  (p.  61)  to  Lucian, 
who  in  fact  has  nothing  of  the  kind.  All  that  Lucian  offers  in  regard 
to  air  voyages  is  given  above  (p.  64),  and  these  are  effected  by  means 
of  wings,  not  of  birds.  Feldhaus  is  mistaken  in  permitting  the  Baby- 
lonian tradition  of  the  flying  Etana  to  migrate  into  Persia  without 
even  knowing  the  story  of  the  Shahnameh.  Etana,  however,  accom- 
plishes flight  merely  by  mounting  a  bird,  while  the  Persian  king  Kai 
Kawus  flies  comfortably  seated  in  a  vehicle  drawn  by  four  eagles  who 
supply  the  motor.  The  two  traditions  are  entirely  distinct  and  not 
interrelated. 

The  old  yarn  of  Simon  the  Magician  as  having  attempted,  at  the 
time  of  Nero,  a  flight  which  ended  in  failure,  is  still  warmed  up  in 


92  The  Prehistory  of  Aviation 

many  books,  recently  again  by  C.  L.  M.  Brown  (p.  7).  Suetonius 
(Nero,  12)  reports  nothing  about  a  flight,  still  less  lisps  a  word  about  a 
flight  of  Simon.  He  writes  merely  that  at  a  performance  of  the  story 
of  Icarus  in  the  theatre  an  actor  (a  petaurista  or  petauristarius)  had 
a  fatal  accident  and  collapsed  on  a  spot  near  the  emperor  whom  he 
covered  with  his  blood;  the  question  is  of  a  stage  disaster,  not  of  a 
flight.  Only  mediaeval  legend  connects  Simon  with  a  flight  achieved 
with  the  devil's  assistance.  Arnobius,  writing  about  the  year  300  of 
our  era,  says  that  the  people  of  Rome  saw  the  chariot  of  Simon  Magus 
and  his  four  fiery  horses  blown  away  by  the  mouth  of  Peter  and 
vanish  at  the  name  of  Christ.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  (315-386)  speaks  of 
Simon's  being  borne  in  the  air  in  the  chariot  of  demons,  and  is  not 
surprised  that  the  combined  prayers  of  Peter  and  Paul  brought  him 
down.  Finally  in  the  Didascalia  Apostolorum,  an  apocryphal  work 
extant  in  Syriac  and  Latin,  Peter  finds  Simon  at  Rome  drawing  many 
away  from  the  church  as  well  as  seducing  the  gentiles  by  his  "magic 
operation  and  virtues."  Peter  then  states  that  one  day  he  saw  Simon 
flying  through  the  air,  but  by  virtue  of  his  prayer  Simon  fell  and 
broke  the  arch  of  his  foot.  In  another,  Greek  version  of  the  legend 
Simon  announced  his  flight  in  the  theatre.  While  all  eyes  were  turned 
on  him,  Peter  prayed  against  him.  Meanwhile  Simon  mounted  aloft 
into  mid-air,  borne  up,  Peter  says,  by  demons,  and  telling  the  people 
that  he  was  ascending  to  heaven,  whence  he  would  return  bringing 
them  good  tidings.  The  people  applauded  him  as  a  god,  but  Peter 
stretched  forth  his  hands  to  heaven,  supplicating  God  through  Jesus 
to  dash  down  the  corrupter  and  curtail  the  power  of  the  demons. 
He  asked,  however,  that  Simon  might  not  be  killed  by  his  fall,  but 
merely  bruised.  Thereupon  Simon  fell  with  a  great  commotion  and 
bruised  his  bottom  and  the  soles  of  his  feet  (compare  L.  Thorndike, 
History  of  Magic  and  Experimental  Science,  Vol.  I,  p.  422).  All  this 
is  freely  invented  legend  for  a  dogmatic  purpose  and  has  nothing  to 
do  with  a  real  attempt  at  flight. 

In  regard  to  the  letter  of  Prester  John  see  the  critical  discussion 
of  L.  Thorndike,  History  of  Magic  and  Experimental  Science,  Vol.  II, 
pp.  240-245,  a  book  that  is  to  be  highly  recommended  for  its 
thorough,  judicious,  and  critical  scholarship. 

The  chapter  "The  Air  Mail  of  Ancient  Times"  is  the  most  com- 
prehensive historical  study  of  carrier  pigeons  thus  far  written.  An 
interesting  article  on  Chinese  lore  of  pigeons  is  by  T.  Watters, 
Chinese  Notions  about  Pigeons  and  Doves,  in  Journal  China  Branch 
Royal  Asiatic  Society,  Vol.  IV,  1868,  pp.  225-242.   No  reference  to 


Notes  93 

carrier  pigeons  is  made  in  this  article,  although  the  name  of  Chang 
Kiu-ling  is  mentioned.  Those  interested  in  Chinese  pigeon  whistles 
may  consult  my  article  on  the  subject  in  The  Scientific  American, 
1908,  p.  394,  where  also  the  process  of  making  the  whistles  is  de- 
scribed with  illustrations  of  examples  and  of  the  tools  used  in  making 
them.  In  regard  to  pigeon  breeds  in  general  see  W.  B.  Tegetmeier, 
Pigeons:  Their  Structure,  Varieties,  Habits,  and  Management,  Lon- 
don, 1868  (with  colored  plates). 

The  Oriental  origin  of  Greek  carrier  pigeons  is  upheld  by  H.  Diels, 
Antike  Technik  (1914),  pp.  68-69;  see  also  my  review  of  this  book  in 
American  Anthropologist ,  1917,  pp.  71-75.  There  is  an  interesting 
article  by  F.  Kluge,  Die  Heimat  der  Brieftaube,  reprinted  in  his 
Bunte  Blatter  (Freiburg,  1908),  pp.  145-154.  The  author  of  this 
article  quotes  chiefly  from  early  German  pilgrimages  to  Palestine  to 
prove  the  Oriental  origin  of  the  pigeon-mail.  He  justly  emphasizes 
the  point  that  the  ancients  employed  pigeons  as  messengers  only 
incidentally  and  occasionally.  L.  Rauwolf's  Beschreibung  der  Raiss 
inn  die  Morgenlander  (1583),  p.  215,  may  be  added  to  his  German 
sources.  Compare  also  Gaudefroy-Demombynes,  La  Syrie  a  l'^poque 
des  Mamelouks  d'apres  les  auteurs  arabes  (1923),  pp.  250-254. 

In  his  charming  story  "Legend  of  Prince  Ahmed  Al  Kamel  or, 
The  Pilgrim  of  Love"  inserted  in  his  The  Alhambra,  Washington 
Irving  has  skilfully  combined  the  Oriental  motives  of  talking  birds, 
knowledge  of  birds'  speech  on  the  part  of  the  prince,  the  courier, 
pigeon  carrying  love  letters  (that  "trustiest  of  messengers"),  the  en- 
chanted horse,  and  the  flying  carpet  of  Solomon  on  which  the  lovers 
elope.  Thomas  Moore,  in  The  Veiled  Prophet  of  Khorassan,  alludes 
to  Solomon's  silken  rug  in  the  lines — 

Waved,  like  the  wings  of  the  white  birds  that  fan 
The  flying  throne  of  star-taught  Soliman — 

and  comments  that  when  Solomon  travelled,  he  had  a  carpet  of  green 
silk  on  which  his  throne  was  placed,  being  of  a  prodigious  length  and 
breadth,  and  sufficient  for  all  his  forces  to  stand  upon,  the  men  plac- 
ing themselves  on  his  right  hand  and  the  spirits  on  his  left;  and  that 
when  all  were  in  order,  the  wind,  at  his  command,  took  up  the  carpet, 
and  transported  it  with  all  that  were  upon  it,  wherever  he  pleased; 
the  army  of  birds  at  the  same  time  flying  over  their  heads,  and  form- 
ing a  sort  of  canopy  to  shade  them  from  the  sun.  The  same  motif  is 
frequently  referred  to  in  the  mediaeval  Midrash  literature. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    REFERENCES 

Bell,  Alexander  Graham. — The  Tetrahedral  Principle  in  Kite  Structure. 
National  Geographic  Magazine,  Vol.  XIV,  1903,  pp.  219-251. 

Aerial  Locomotion.  National  Geographic  Magazine,  1907,  pp.  1-34. 

Dr.  Bell's  Man-Lifting  Kite.  National  Geographic  Magazine,  1908, 
pp.  35-52. 

Brown,  C.  L.  M. — The  Conquest  of  the  Air,  an  Historical  Survey.  London,  Oxford 
University  Press,  1927. 

Chanute,  O. —  Progress  in  Flying  Machines.  New  York,  1899. 

Feldhaus,  F.  M. — Ruhmesblatter  der  Technik.   Leipzig,  1910. 
Leonardo  der  Techniker  und  Erfinder.  Jena,  1913. 

Hart,  Ivor  B. — The  Mechanical  Investigations  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci.  Chicago, 
Open  Court  Publishing  Co.,  1925.  240p. 

Chap.  VII:  Leonardo  da  Vinci  as  a  Pioneer  of  Aviation. 

Hodgson,  J.  E. — The  History  of  Aeronautics  in  Great  Britain  from  the  Earliest 
Times  to  the  Latter  Half  of  the  Nineteenth  Century.  150  illustrations.  Oxford 
University  Press,  London,  Humphrey  Milford,  1924.  436p. 

Lana,  Francesco  (Bresciano). — Prodromo  overo  saggio  di  alcune  inventioni 
nuove  premesso  all'arte  maestra.   Brescia,  1670.  252p.  20  plates. 

Copy  in  Library  of  Armour  Institute  of  Technology,  Chicago. 

Chap.  VI:  Fabricare  una  nave,  che  camini  sostentata  sopra  1'aria  a  remi 
e  a  vele;  quale  si  dimostra  poter  riuscire  nella  prattica  ("To  manufacture  a  ship 
which  travels  supported  above  the  air  by  means  of  oars  and  sails:  it  is  demon- 
strated that  this  is  feasible  in  practice"). 

Wilkins,  John. — Mathematicall  Magick  or,  The  "Wonders  that  may  be  performed 
by  Mechanicall  Geometry."  In  Two  Books.  Concerning  Mechanicall  Powers, 
Motions.  Being  one  of  the  most  easie,  pleasant,  usefull,  (and  yet  most  ne- 
glected) part  of  Mathematicks.  Not  before  treated  of  in  this  language.  By 
J.  W.  M.  A.  London,  printed  by  M.  F.  for  Sa.  Gellibrand  at  the  brasen 
Serpent  in  Pauls  Church-yard,  1648.   269p. 

Copy  in  Library  of  Armour  Institute  of  Technology,  Chicago. 
Book  II  is  entitled  "Daedalus,  or  Mechanicall  Motions." 


94 


INDEX 


Aelianus,  74. 

Aerial  top,  Chinese,  42. 

Air  bombardments,  12-13,  22,  47. 

Airship,  Chinese  conception  of,  17; 

Indian  conception  of,  46 
Alchemy,  in   China,  26,  28;  in  Asia 

and  Europe,  30. 
Alexander  the  Great,  romance  of,  60, 

62,  69. 
Alexandria,  carrier  pigeons  at,  80,  81. 
Anti-aircraft  practice,  first  example  of, 

35. 
Arabian  Nights,  77,  78. 
Arabs,   attempts  at  flying  by,   65-67; 

organizers  of  pigeon-posts,  77-80. 
Archytas,  flying  dove  of,  23,  37,  64. 
Ariosto,  83. 
Aziz,  Egyptian  Caliph,  first  recipient  of 

parcels  by  air  mail,  78. 
Avril,  P.,  81. 

Bacon,  Roger,  68-70. 

Baden-Powell,  man-lifting  kite  of,  42. 

Baghdad,   centre   of   pigeon-mail,   78; 

pigeons  of,  84,  87. 
Bate,  J.,  description  of  kite  by,  38. 
Baveru  Jataka,  76. 
Belgium,  carrier  pigeons  in,  85. 
Bell,  A.  G.,  13,  42. 
Beybars,  air  mail  organized  by,  79. 
Bird-men,  Chinese,  15. 
Birds,  used  by  navigators  to  spy  land, 

76. 
Bladud,  aerial  flight  of,  14. 
Boots,  magic,  53-54. 
Bow,  musical,  attached  to  kites,  33,  37. 
Breathing,  art  of,  29. 
Brihat  Katha  Clokasamgraha,  48. 

Caesar,  75. 

Cairo,  carrier  pigeons  at,  79,  80. 

Carrier  pigeons,  history  of,  71-87. 

Cayley,  Sir  George,  42. 

Centipede  kite,  32. 

Chang  Kiu-ling,  first  Chinese  who  kept 

and  trained  carrier  pigeons,  71,  88. 
Chanute,  O.,  31,  32. 
Cock,  Indian  airship  in  the  form  of,  49. 
Crane,  vehicle  of  flyers,  26,  27. 
Crusades,  carrier  pigeons  used  during, 

75,  82-84. 
Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  64,  65. 

Daedalus,  9,  62-63. 
Dallam,  T.,  80. 
Damian,  John,  67-68. 
Danti,  G.  B.,  67. 
Darwin,  C,  84. 


Darwin,  E.,  13. 

Dirigible  airships,  in  Indian  tradition, 

47. 
Dragons,  as  vehicles  of  aerial  flights, 

18,  69. 

Eagles,  carrying  an  airship,  59,  62. 
Elixir,  promoting  flight,  26,  30. 
Enchanted  horse,  55. 
England,   carrier  pigeons  in,  85;  kite 

used  in,  38. 
Etana,  58,  91. 

Fire-crackers,  in  connection  with  kites, 

33. 
Flutes,  connected  with  kites,  33. 
Flying  elixir,  30. 
Flying  horse,  55-56. 
Flying  shoes,  28. 

Flying  Taoist  saint,  on  painting,  28. 
France,  use  of  carrier  pigeons  in,  85-86. 
Franklin,    Benjamin,    experiments    of 

with  a  kite,  39. 
Frontinus,  75. 

Gandharva  marriage,  47. 

Garuda  airship,    6,  47,  50,  51. 

Giles,  H.  A.,  on  Chinese  airship,  20,  89. 

Glanvill,  J.,  13. 

Godwin,  F.,  bird  airship  of,  61,  65,  91. 

Goose,  as  messenger,  73,  89. 

Greeks,  carrier  pigeons  among,  74-75; 
flying  among,  62-65;  regarded  in  India 
as  the  inventors  of  a  type  of  airship, 
49-52. 

Gunavarman,  46. 

Harshacharita,  50. 

Harun  al-Rashid,  pigeon-post  of,  77. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  30. 

Hodgson,  J.  E.,  author  of  History  of 

Aeronautics  in  Great  Britian,  8,  34, 

43,  61,  67,  70,  91. 
Holland,  carrier  pigeons  in,  85. 
Huang  Ti,  18,  19. 

India,  carrier  pigeons  in,  73;  conception 
of  airships  in,  46-52,  55-57;  kites  in, 
37. 

Irving,  Washington,  65,  93. 

Jatakas,  46,  53,  55. 
Jivaka,  11. 

Kai  Kawus,  flying  Persian  king,  59,  91. 
K'ai  yuan  t'ien  pao  i  shi,  three  texts 

translated  from,  88. 
Katha  Sarit  Sagara,  48,  52,  53. 
Ki-kung,  maker  of  flying  chariot,  19. 


95 


96 


Index 


Kibaga,  flying  warrior  of  Uganda,  12. 
Kircher,  A.,  acquainted  with  kites,  37, 

41. 
Kite,  contest,  32;  for  catching  fish,  36; 

in  England,  38;  in  India,  37;  in  Italy, 

37;  in  Polynesia,   36;   in  Siam,  37; 

paper,  31,  35;  ridden  by  men,  40; 

wooden,  23,  25. 
Kites,  history  of,  31-43. 
K'ii  Yuan,  Chinese  poet,  air-journey  of, 

17. 
Kung-shu  Tse,  23,  24. 

Lana,  Francesco,  airship  of,  2,  21,  22, 
65;  flying  birds  made  by,  25;  on 
kites,  37. 

Lanterns,  attached  to  kites,  30. 

Lei  Kung,  Chinese  god  of  thunder,  16. 

Leonardo  da  Vinci,  aeroplanes  of,  70; 
parachute  of,  15. 

Li  Sao,  first  description  of  an  air- 
journey  in,  17. 

Li  Ye,  inventor  of  musical  kite,  33. 

Linschoten,  73,  81. 

Logan,  J.,  13. 

Lu  Pan,  23,  24. 

Lucian,  64,  76,  91. 

Mackintosh,  bird  airship  of,  62. 

Magic  boots,  28,  53-54. 

Mao  Mong,  18. 

Masudi,  78. 

Mercury,  in  alchemy,  30. 

Mesopotamia,  flying  in,  58;  home  of 

domesticated  pigeon,  75. 
Mirror,  showing  interior  organs  of  body, 
,  ,11,  88. 
Mo  Ti,  23. 
Mongols,  74,  79. 
Moore,  Thomas,  71,  84,  93. 
"Music  on  the  air,"  produced  by  kites, 

33;  produced  by  pigeon  whistles,  72. 

Noah,  dove  of,  76. 

Nur-ed-din,  air  mail  organized  by,  78. 

Oliver  of  Malmesbury,  67. 

Panchatantra,  46. 

Parachute,  first  used  by  Shun,  14;  of 

Leonardo  da  Vinci,  15. 
Parcel  post  by  air  mail,  first  example 

in  tenth  century,  78. 
Passenger  airship,  in  India,  50. 
Pei  Ti,  18. 
Persia,  carrier  pigeons  in,  73-74;  flying 

architect  of,  66;  tradition  of  airship 

drawn  by  eagles  in,  59-60. 
Pigeon  whistles,  72,  93. 
Pliny,  75,  76. 

Po  Ku-i,  flying  shoes  of,  28. 
Po  wu  chi,  19 


Rabelais,  64,  84. 

Regiomontanus,  25. 

Reuter,  pigeon-post  of,  85. 

Roentgen  rays,  idea  of  anticipated  in 
China  and  India,  11-12,  88. 

Romans,  carrier  pigeons  among,  75. 

Rukh,  the  giant  bird,  first  air-bom- 
bardier,    12. 

Schlegel,  G.,  89. 

Shahnameh,  59,  60. 

Shakespeare,  84. 

Shan  hai  king,  19. 

Shun,  Chinese  emperor,  first  flyer  re- 
corded in  history,  14,  88. 

Si  Wang  Mu,  flying  on  crane's  back,  27. 

Siddhi  Kur,  47. 

Signalling,  by  means  of  kites,  34,  35. 

Simon  the  Magician,  91-92. 

Solar  ship,  conception  of  in  India, 
Egypt,  and  Greece,  46. 

Spinning  Damsel,  16. 

Stanley,  story  of  flying  Uganda  warrior 
recorded  by,  12. 

Strutt,  J.,  38. 

Sulphur,  in  alchemy,  30. 

Sun  Pin,  flying  shoes  of,  28. 

Swallow,  Chinese  story  of  transmitting 
a  letter,  88;  speed  of  compared  with 
carrier  pigeon,  87. 

Swift,  61,  64. 

Symon  Semeon,  80. 

Syria,  pigeon-post  in,  78. 

Tasso,  83. 

Thorndike,  L.,  69,  92. 
Thousand-league  boots,  28,  54. 
Ti  wang  shi  ki,  19,  89. 
Tiger,  vehicle  of  flyers,  27. 
Ts'in  Shi,  mirror  of,  11. 
Turks,  kite-flying  among,  37. 

Uganda  warrior,  flyer  and  air-bombar- 
dier, 12. 
Uncles,  M.,  eagle  airship  of,  62. 

Wayland  the  Smith,  63. 

Weaver  as  Vishnu,  story  of,  46,  90. 

Wells,  H.  G.,  on  Daedalus  story,  9. 

Wilkins,  J.,  9,  22. 

Wilson,   A.,  scientific  experiments   of 

with  kites,  39. 
Wind-driven  chariot,  in  China,  19;  in 

India,  45. 
World  War,  carrier  pigeons  in,  86. 


Yavana  airship,  49,  50,  51. 
Ye  Fa-shan,  magician,  88. 
Yoga  practice,  53. 
Yogins,  30. 
Pocock,  G.,  kite-chariot  of,  21,  41.  Yji  yang  tsa  tsu,  73. 

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KI-KUNG'S  FLYING  CHARIOT  (p.  20) 
Chinese  Woodcut  from  T'u  shu  tai  ch'eng 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 


Anthropology,  Vol.  XVIII,  No.  1,  Plate  V 


FRANCESCO  LANA'S  FLYING  BOAT  (p.  21) 
From  Lana's  Prodrorao,  1670 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 


Anthropology,  Vol.  XVIII,  No.  1 ,  Plate  VT 


FLYING  TAOIST  SAINT  (p.  28) 

Chinese  Landscape  in  Ink  from  General  Munthe  Collection 

now  in  Los  Angeles  Museum 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 


Anthropology,  Vol.  XVIII,  No.  1,  Plate  VII 


\*v--~ 


THE  GODDESS  SI  WANG  MU  FLYING  ASTRIDE  A  CRANE  (p.  27) 

Scene  from  an  Embroidered  Chinese  Screen  of  the  K'ang-hi  Period   (1662-1722)  in 

Blackstone  Collection  of  Field  Museum 


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Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 


Anthropology,  Vol.  XVIII,  No.  1,  Plate  IX 


EARLIEST  ENGLISH  ILLUSTRATION  OF  A  KITE  (p.  38) 
From  John  Bates'  The  Mysteries  of  Nature  and  Art,  1634 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 


Anthropology,  Vol.  XVIII,  No.  1,  Plate  X 


TWO  APSARASES  OR  HEAVENLY  NYMPHS  FLYING  DOWNWARD 

AND  SURROUNDING  THE  BUDDHA  AMITABHA  (p.  52) 

Marble  Sculpture  with  Votive  Inscription  Yielding  Date  A.D.  677 

Blackstone  Chinese  Collection  of  Field  Museum 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 


Anthropology,  Vol.  XVIII,  No.  1,  Plate  XI 


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KAI  KAWUS    FLIGHT  TO  HEAVEN  (p.  60) 

From  a  Persian  Illustrated  Manuscript  of  the  Shahnameh,  Dated  1587-88 

Courtesy  of  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  New  York 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History  Anthropology,  Vol.  XVIII,  No.  1,  Plate  XII 


THE  AERIAL  VOYAGE  OF  DOMINGO  GONSALES  (p.  61) 
From  F.  Godwin's  Man  in  the  Moone,  1638 


